Pig's Enchantress
by waxonwings
Summary: Aria's newest coping mechanism has given her a way to escape, but when reality starts to sink its claws in, she isn't prepared for the consequences. Spencer's central focus becomes rescuing Aria- and herself- from the tangled net that has become their lives. And the ultimate decision they must face: Do we want to fix it? The second book starts after chapter 29. Enjoy c:
1. Part I: Chapter 1

"Wake up, Spence. Food's here." Aria says, wiggling out from beneath me. I blink sleep from my eyes and meet hers. Ugh. Fuck. My elbows pop as I extend them beneath me, lifting my reluctant weight from the sofa. For a moment, my thighs stick so persistently, I worry they've grafted to the leather. It's blatantly obvious I was the only one who fell asleep, as the other three have already vacated their seats without so much resistance from their fatigued bodies. I roll to my left, managing a sufficient amount of momentum to lift myself from the sofa. I sit on a barstool next to Aria, who's already opened her vegan stir-fry. I extract Pad Thai from the paper sack, and halfheartedly pick through it. It isn't bad; I'm just genuinely not hungry.

"You okay, Spence?" Emily asks sweetly.

I shake my head. I've been doing that a lot lately. "Yeah, no, I'm fine. I just woke up." I brush my hair, in its deteriorating state, out of my eyes. I impale a piece of chicken with my chopsticks and occupy myself with chewing it. Once, twice, three times. 4,5,6. I count to twenty-two before swallowing. The cycle is repeated with a wad of noodles.

"You seem really fucking out of it." Hanna comments. I look up, four green onions hooked on one chopstick.

"Brew me some coffee if you're so adamant about my being fully present. None of that weak shit you drink. Make it strong." Hanna sighs aggressively, but complies. Aria looks at me warmly and I use that as my motivation to get it together. I straighten my posture and blink a few times. Crack my neck, take a deep breath.

"Okay, I'm back." I announce. Emily smiles at me softly. Hanna's dumping coffee grounds into the machine like there's no tomorrow.

"Han, I need a jolt, not a defibrillator. Take it easy."

"You said make it strong. Ask and ye shall receive." She retorts.

"Han, take it easy." She starts scooping in reverse, removing the excess grounds.

"You're sending mixed signals."

"I'm reasonably confidant you can keep up." She simply scoffs in response. Emily stifles a quiet giggle and I smile at her.

"You done yet, Hanna?" I ask.

"It's brewing." She responds, annoyed. Aria has abandoned her food already. I find this strange, usually she would have wolfed down the entire box. She stands up, kissing the top of my head, and walks to the fridge. Her beverage of choice is a bottle of lemon lime sparkling ice. Hanna places a cup of dark-as-night coffee in front of me and glares at me expectantly. I press the rim to my lips. She thinks it's going to be too strong. Well, then, bottoms up. The heat singes my lips, but the overwhelmingly strong taste is comforting. I let out an ahh and push it back towards Hanna.

"I wanna see you try it." She hesitates, and follows my lead. Bottoms up. She coughs, then sputters, then spits. She hands it back to me, and I chuckle. I take a few more sips, running the flavor over my tongue, savoring it.

"I will never understand you." Hanna states.

"That," I reply, "Is the best part." Aria moves from the counter to stand behind me. She rests her chin on my shoulder.

"Nobody understands Spencer. That's what makes her Spencer." Aria says, lifting her jaw slightly from my shoulder in order to speak. Emily nods her agreement, and Hanna scoffs. Again.

"Are you flirting with her?" Hanna gestures from Aria to me.

"Yeah, Ar, you're only supposed to flirt with Hanna. That's your thing." Emily chimes in. In response, Aria pushes my hair out of the way and gently kisses the crook of my neck, smiling onto my skin. Her lips feel cold and dry, and I can feel the cracks in the skin scratching me. She pulls away as quickly as she leant in, but ruffles my hair softly as she walks away.

"I'll be upstairs." She calls back to us. I fight a losing battle with the butterflies in my stomach.

"You are so hot for her." Hanna accuses once Aria is out of earshot.

"She just surprised me."

"You used to be a much better liar." Emily states.

"I'm not lying, Em." They both laugh.

"Aria is such a fucking tease. You know she's really all about Danny, right?" Hanna inquires, shaking her head. What? Yes, of course I knew that. But every word stings.

"Christ, Hanna. I'm not into her." I know she isn't buying it. Whatever.

"Your secret's safe with me." Hanna draws an X over her heart and winks at me. I sigh. There's no point with Hanna. She's relentless. I continue to sip my coffee.

"I think we could use some music." Emily says, breaking the silence that had fallen over us. I stand and pace over to our surround speaker system, inserting a CD labeled "Spencer's Playlist". First song to play is Virgin by Manchester Orchestra.

"Better?" I ask.

"Much." They reply in unison.

"I aim to please."

"Let's go upstairs." Hanna suggests. I nod my agreement and scoop up my trash, tossing it skillfully into the bin. Emily nestles the leftovers into the fridge, and Hanna gathers hers and Emily's trash, carefully placing it into the bin. I look at her and laugh.

"What? Not everyone is you."

"You're shitting me." I reply.

"Hard as it is to believe, it's true."

"You're so informative. What would I do without you?"

"Crash and burn, probably." I chuckle. She knows I'd be lost without her.

"Indubitably." I confirm. Hanna loops an arm through mine and we walk upstairs, side by side, with Emily trailing behind. We reach my bedroom shortly after, breaking the silence within. The room is empty, but a streak of orange light peeks out from beneath the bathroom door.

"Aria?" Hanna calls, knocking on the door.

"Just a second, guys." Aria calls back, tension stringing her voice. I hear her inhale sharply, then breathe a sigh of relief. Emily slides onto my red chaise, dark hair contrasting my white pillows. Aria slides out of the bathroom, her bag plastered to her side. Her bangs are obscuring her eyes, but when she ducks past me, my eyes make contact with her wide disks of pupils. She takes a seat on my bed and refuses eye contact.

"Truth or dare?" Emily suggests.

"What is this, 6th grade?" Hanna laughs.

"Yes." Emily defends herself. "Yes, it is. And you're going first."

"No. This is lame."

"Let's play Best day, Worst day." Emily says. "I saw it in a book. It's exactly what it sounds like. We all tell about the best days of our lives, and decide whose is best. Then the same for the worst days of our lives."

"Fine, but you're going first." Hanna shakes her head.

"Okay, best day of my life. I was 13, and it was the day we all went to the waterpark with Ali. She and I split an ice and floated through the lazy river on a double inner tube. She shared everything she knew about the people floating by, revealing secrets, giggling like she did. Then we went back to Hanna's house and drank rum in her room and just barely got buzzed, and then we all fell asleep in our sleeping bags on the floor, windows open and cicadas chirping. That was the best day of my life." Emily nods.

"Okay, my turn." Hanna says. "The best day of my life was the last day before my dad left. I think he was trying to soften the blow, he took me to the amusement park and spent so much on me, we had so much fun. It was such a genuinely good time. We rode the rollercoasters and bought the pictures and laughed until we cried and ate ice cream beneath the Ferris wheel. Then he left the next day, without so much as a goodbye note." Hanna wipes a single tear from her eye. Emily walks over and hugs her.

"Aria, it's your turn." She says.

"Okay. The best day of my life was the day I lost my virginity to Ezra Fitz. It was a horrendously shitty day otherwise, with my father trying to separate us. But none of that mattered once I was with him. Don't tell Danny, okay?" Her voice shakes slightly, but I think I'm the only one who notices.

"My turn. The best day of my life was the day I tested higher than Melissa for English and reading. I finally had something I could lay claim to." The story is total bullshit and I know it. But it's all I can think of, wondering why Aria's voice is shaking and why she won't look me in the eye.

"I'd say Hanna wins." Emily says, and Aria agrees. I nod.

"I am entirely too pooped for another round of this." Hanna sighs.

"Glad it isn't just me." I flop backward onto my bed, glad I showered shortly before Aria had first come over. I would hate to have to go through the hassle right now.

"Sleeping arrangements?" Emily asks.

"Team SpAria in here, you and I can take the guest room." Hanna answers. She scoops up her purse, bulging with her change of clothes she packed. Emily follows suit, slinging a small backpack full of her sleepover gear over one shoulder. Hanna winks at me on the way out, and I laugh. You can thank me later. She mouths as she exits.

I walk over to the bed and slip under the covers. I'm glad I showered earlier.

"I know you lied." She mumbles, tapping her fingers on the bed.

"About what?" She moves her fingers and aggressively scratches her jawline.

"The best day of your life." Her eyes dart back and forth across the room.

"Yeah." I reply. "I test higher than Melissa for everything." I chuckle. Red lines appear where she was scratching.

"Ar, you're shaking like a chihuahua." I blurt out.

"Am I? I don't think I am. Why would you say that? I'm not shaking. I'm fine." Her words are pouring out of her mouth like syrup, fluid and sticky. She digs her nails into her hip.

"Are you high?" I whisper.

"Don't tell. Don't tell." She whispers back, flipping herself over to face me. Her eyes are riddled with terror and her breathing sounds like she's in labor. I'm at a loss for what to say.

"I won't tell." I promise.


	2. Chapter 2

His couch is a sticky leather, cold, and cracked around the edges. We curl up with a blanket and an overfilled bowl of unbearably salty popcorn. The old tube-style TV plays his VHS copy of _The Breakfast Club._ The wild, cacophonic whirlwind of my life has slowed to a dull roar, and I sink into his warmth .I'm staring at the scuff marks on the linoleum flooring in his kitchen when he nudges me with his shoulder.

"Are you okay?" He asks. God, I hate that question. Who doesn't hate that question? Of course I'm okay, my heart's still beating, isn't it? I want to thank him for caring, surely he doesn't know any better, and he just wants his girlfriend to know he thinks of her.

"I'm fine. Just… tired." I have no idea as to why this excuse is still valid when it's so obviously bullshit in the overwhelming majority of situations. But he nods carefully, kissing me on the head.

"We can go to sleep, if you want. Finish this later." He practically begs for me to say no.

I turn to kiss him, letting him push me into the couch and smother me with his puppy-dog lips. "Can I borrow some money?" I mutter into his mouth, a persistent voice inside my head pestering me incessantly.

"Are you serious?" He pushes back, his normally jovial expression morphed into one of disbelief and slight offense. His hand doesn't move from the higher end of my thigh, though he throws it a few awkward glances. "You need more money?"

"One-hundred." I say, my voice retracting further and further, sounding shameful and broken. Danny, if he had any sense, would kick me out on my ass right now and not waste another penny on me.

"Aria, I don't have any fucking money! Look around you!" He gestures wildly to the rusty faucet and the chipping paint on the walls and the assorted stains on the carpet. "If I had _money_, this is what I would spend it on." His voice losing its hesitance.

"I'm your girlfriend! Can't you give me some damn money?"

I didn't think he had it in him, but he raised his hand in the air and brought it down to my face.

The rest is a blur.

Spencer's POV

Aria walks into my bedroom silently, knocking on the door frame to alert me of her entrance. I glance up, and jump back when I lay eyes on her face. Her left eye is bruised badly and her nose is dripping blood, and tears and snot have dried with it.

"Aria-" She bursts into a fresh set of tears, lower lip quaking, and limps across the room and into my arms. She sobs violently onto my shoulder, choking and coughing.

"Aria, what happened?" I don't pressure her to respond; instead I stroke her hair and rub circles on her back. She sputters out a few syllables, but no coherent words.

"Hey, it's okay. It's okay. Aria, it's okay." She shakes her head as she pulls away from me. She tries to recompose herself. She rubs tears from beneath her eyes with her thumbs and grabs a tissue from my nightstand, and blows her nose.

"I shouldn't have come here. You didn't sign up for this." She turns on her heels to leave, but I catch her by the wrist.

"Who did this to you?" I demand. She shakes her head again and avoids eye contact. "Aria."

"It was Danny." She breathes. "Danny."

"What happened?" I ask. More tears spill out onto her face.

"Don't tell. Don't tell. Don't tell." She whispers. "Please don't tell."

I don't know what to say. She's stopped crying, and her face bears a glassy and distant stare.

"Let's get you cleaned up." I lead her over to my bed and start stripping her of her soiled clothes. My white sweater has snot and blood and tears smeared into the right shoulder. I take it off as well. I pull Aria's lace tank top up and off her body, and reach around to unhook her bra. I slide the bra off her arms and see her breasts covered in purple bruises and angry red bite marks. Every patch of skin I can see is covered in angry red fingernail scratches, some of which have scabbed. She stands up, arms crossed over her chest, so I can remove her pants. I unbuckle and pull her jeans to her ankles and see lines of parallel cuts and scars covering her upper thighs. Bruises of all colors, from fresh dark purple to fading yellow adorn her legs. A trickle of blood drips down her inner thigh. For a moment, I think she's started her period. But then it occurs to me.

"Did he rape you?" She nods silently, without making eye contact. I unbuckle her sandals and pull them off her feet, and tug her underwear down with her pants. She steps out with my help, and I lift her into my arms bridal style and carry her to the bathroom in my room. I lower her carefully into the tub and reach down to plug the drain. My hands turn on the water to a gentle warm, and I grab a washcloth from the towel rack and moisten it beneath the flow of water. Then I dump my tooth brushes from the glass by my sink and fill it in the tub. I use one hand to shield Aria's eyes as the other pours it over her head. Using both the glass and washcloth, I wet her down and cover her in my cherry almond soap. It takes just as long to wash it all off, and when I have, I pull the plug and drain the dirty water. I start the faucet again, and rinse her again with fresh water. She hasn't moved since I set her in here. It takes both hands to lift her up and set her on the toilet, and she drips all over the rug. I towel her down to the best of my ability and pull bandages and Neosporin from my medicine cabinet to doctor her wounds, checking her face several times for any change, but she's just as despondent as before. I stand her up and wrap her in a plush red towel, and walk her back to my bed. It's somewhat difficult to position her comfortably and get the blanket over her, but I manage. A second towel seems warranted, to keep her wet hair off my pillows. After fetching it, I change quickly into my pajamas and curl up on my red chaise, no hope of sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

I awake three hours later to a beam of moonlight in my face. I sit up and glance at my alarm clock. It's 2:03. I still feel a residual nausea from earlier events. Aria is sound asleep beneath my sheets, breaths shaking and laborious. Should I take her to the hospital? No, no, that would warrant an explanation. I decide to call Wren at a more appropriate hour. I remove myself from the leather chair, and decide to head downstairs for a drink. I skip the seventh and third steps, because they creak. I choose a bottle of pink lemonade from the fridge and pour it into a glass. A bottle of vodka is perched behind a glass cabinet. I retrieve it and slosh an ounce or so into my glass. A heavy, plaintive sigh escapes my lips. I cough as I sip it, but I sip it anyway. It warms my stomach, and gives me chills. What am I going to do about Aria? How will I cover for her? How will I care for her? I don't know. I really don't. I'll just have to take it as it comes. I rest my glass on the granite counter and pull a second glass from the cabinet behind me. I fill it with ice cubes, and then occupy the remaining space with cold water. I'll take that up for Aria. Poor, sweet Aria. I pull an odwalla bar from another cabinet. Aria might get hungry, and I don't want her to have to get up for food. I down the rest of my drink and head upstairs. I skip the steps, as before, tiptoeing back into the bedroom. I silently place the water and odwalla bar on my nightstand, but Aria's eyes flutter open anyway.

"Spencer?"

"Yeah, Ar?"

She lifts her hand to pat the mattress, indicating for me to join her. She always gravitates to the right of the bed, so I walk around to the other side so she won't have to move over. I slide under the covers, careful not to touch her.

"Just come here." She says. "I need someone here." Her usage of the word someone indicates I'm not that special to her, which offends me. I scoot over, and, as if she'd read my mind, she says, "I need you." My left side presses into her right.

"What happened?" I whisper.

"He just gets off on this. He was in the mood, I guess." Her words ignite a fire within my chest. I'll fucking end this guy.

"How long has this been going on?"

"Three weeks."

"How long have you been cutting yourself?"

"I could tell you three weeks, but I'd be lying. Four years." She sighs.

"I'm so sorry."

"Don't feel guilty." Her dark green eyes meet mine in the moonlight. It's hard to believe she got her shit together so quickly. She's so strong. So, so strong.

"Are you hungry?" I ask.

"No, but I do have to pee." She move slowly and with immense effort, but she doesn't even hint at weakness. I rush over to help her up, remembering only as I lay eyes on her that she never got dressed. She hooks her right arm through my left, grasping my forearm tightly and I pull her up, some extra help coming from my free hand. I can tell she's reluctant to accept my aide, but she puts her pride aside and leans on me and lets me lead to the bathroom.

"Shield your eyes." I warn before I flip on the light. We make our way to the toilet, and she sits down as I turn to face the mirror. I grab a ponytail holder from the counter and pull my messy hair up into a sloppy bun. Aria finishes and stands up after wiping off.

"Do you want some clothes?"

"Do I make you uncomfortable?"

"No, I just thought you might want some."

"Okay." I quickly fetch her a loose, oversized t shirt and a pair of cotton underwear. I figure, the less tight clothing, the more comfortable she'll be. I reenter the bathroom and place them on the counter. She's examining her body in front of the mirror.

"We have to get the fuck out of here. No one can see me like this. We have to get out." She shakes her head nervously. Her body is a wreck. Her left eye is triple the size of her right, and almost completely swelled shut. A bruise, likely caused by the impact to her nose, has formed beneath her right eye. The nose itself is still an angry red. Another smaller bruise sits on her left temple. The rest of her body is covered in bruises and burns and cuts and scars. I can't believe anybody could do this to my best friend.

"We can't go. The police will get into it. Let's dress you in all long sleeves and pants to cover up the worst of it. Then, for your face, let's say you tried to break up a fight at a party and one of the guys got a few good hits in at you. Here." I say, handing her the clothes. She dons them carefully, clearly agonized by every movement. She grabs my arm again. I flip the light off on our way out. We crawl into the bed slowly.

"Why did you never tell me?"

"I didn't want you to know." It was such an honest and straightforward answer, which was surprising, coming from Aria. She usually spoke so tactfully.

"Then why did you come here?"

"I didn't know where else to go. I almost went to Ezra's, but he would have called the police. I-I don't know. I just knew I could trust you. I'm sorry for dragging you into this, though." She says. "And I'm sorry about the other night. When I started crying. You didn't have to see that."

"Aria, you're my best friend. I'd do anything for you. You don't need to apologize." I reply as I put my arm over her shoulder and pull her close to me.

"You're not going to tell anyone, are you?" She gazes up at me through thick eyelashes. I open my mouth to speak, then close it again. The words catch in my throat.

"Not if you promise not to see him anymore. If you go back, I'm calling the cops. I care about you too much to ever let this happen again."

"What if he comes for me?"

"We call the police."

"How do we prove this has been going on for a while?"

"Let's take pictures of your injuries in the morning, okay?"

"Okay." A silence fills the empty space around us. Neither one of us can find the words to break it, and I can feel her breathing steady as she drifts off to sleep in my arms. I rest my head on hers, and feel myself losing consciousness as well.

When I wake up, she's gone. Without a trace. I don't remember her leaving. I grab my phone from the nightstand and dial her cell, but it goes straight to voice-mail.

"Aria?" I call. No response. I called out a few more times, each to no avail. I bustle down the stairs and into the living room. A piece of white paper on the counter catches my attention. Aria can run, but she can't hide. Will she make it on her own? -A. Just then, my phone buzzes from my pants pocket. The number is unknown, and the text reads: Had to go. Don't tell. I'll in a few days. Aria. I grunt in frustration and kick the counter, right as my father paces into the kitchen.

"Spencer?" My head jerks up and I stuff A's note into my pocket.

"Sorry, Emily just reminded me I have a test tomorrow. I thought I'd have the day off." I groan again to reinforce the lie. "I'm gonna head to the library to study." I dash past him to go get dressed. I yank on a pair of jeans and a sweater. I didn't wash my hair last night, so it's still straightened from yesterday. It's a little dirty, however, so I pull it into a ponytail. I slide into a pair of boots and shove my keys and phone into my bag. I grab my English textbook and notebook as evidence and dash back downstairs and through the front door. My father makes no attempt to stop me. I toss my things into the passenger seat and dial Caleb as I pull out of the driveway. He picks up on the third ring.

"Do you know how to locate an unknown number?" I demand in lieu of a greeting.

"Good morning to you, too." He chuckles.

"This is serious."

"I can try. Meet me at the brew in 30, bring the phone it was sent to."

"This has to be completely confidential."

"Whatever you say."

"Thanks so much." I hang up and dial Ezra. He doesn't pick up, so I redial. He answers on the first ring.

I know if I ask him where she is, he'll know I don't know. And if she isn't with him, he needs to think I know where she is. I have to be more tactful. "Can you tutor me for an English test?" The way I figure, if she's hiding out over there, he'll find a way out of it without directly telling me anything.

"Uh, yeah. Sounds good. Where?"

"Can we meet at your place? I don't feel like sitting around in a noisy cafe." If she's there, he'll never agree. I feel strange asking to go to a teacher's house, but he works at Hollis now, so he isn't even my teacher anymore.

"Umm... yeah, I guess." I can tell he's a bit weirded out, but I have my answer.

"Actually, I just remembered, I have lunch with my sister in 30 minutes. I'm so sorry."

"Uh, that's okay?" He's still confused. I hang up and run through a list in my mind of who to call. The search turns up empty and I sigh. I pull onto an empty parking space in font of the brew, my car fitting nicely with the other like a neatly packed sardine. I gather my belongings and exit the car quickly. I immediately see Caleb, rolling back and forth on the heels of his feet like a wooden rocking chair. A messenger bag hangs off his left shoulder. I hurry over to him and drop my cell phone into his hands.

"Oh, it's your phone this time. Good to see you've quit stealing blind people's phones. Have you stopped curb-stomping puppies, too?"

"Caleb, this is serious." He grins at me. We walk in and choose a table near an outlet, and he pulls his laptop from his bag and plugs it in. I hand him the phone cable, and he connects one end to my phone and the other to his computer. I cover the phone with my hand.

"I'm trusting you to not tell anyone, ever, no matter what."

"Scared I'll spill your dirt?"

"The dirt isn't on me. Which is why this is so important." I lean forward in my chair and look him dead in the eye. "Don't tell ten minutes from now, ten months from now, or ten years from now. Not even to Hanna." The inherent twinkle of amusement fades from his eyes and he mimics my posture.

"You have my word." He says. Then, he leans back in his chair and opens my phone. The unknown text is still opened, and I see his expression darken as he reads it. He glances back up at me.

"You sure you don't want to take this thing down to the cop shop? Sounds like serious business."

"Please, just try to find the source of the number." He salutes and redirects his attention to my phone.

"How long has she been gone?" He asks, without looking up.

"Since last night." He doesn't ask any more questions, not why she left or who gave her the bruises or why he can't tell. I'm so thankful he isn't pushy.

"Do you want something to drink?" I inquire. He nods, again without looking up.

"Iced coffee, black."

"Okay, be right back." The brew is almost empty, and there is no immediate line. I ask for a double shot of espresso in addition to Caleb's order. The order is completed quickly, and I saunter back to our table in the corner.

"The number is local to Minnesota, but I don't think the text was sent from around there. I'll take this home and keep trying, if you don't mind."

"Uh, yeah. Go ahead. Remember, keep it on the down low." He leaves with a nod, and not another word.


	4. Chapter 4

Lily's not answering her front door. I double check my phone, confirming that I did, in fact, get the time right. I knock again and cross my arms around my chest. I hear hurried footsteps and the door swings open. Lily's dressed in a pink ruffle top and a black pencil skirt, silver leather bag plastered to her side.

"Are we going someplace?" I ask.

"Yeah," She replies, glancing back over her shoulder. "My mom's hovering. We need to talk."

"O-okay. Let's go." I turn around and head back to my car, and she trails close behind. When I hop behind the wheel, I see her leaning against the garage door, phone in hand.

"You coming?" I ask. She nods and pushes her phone back into her pocket. She sits down in the passenger seat and yanks her seatbelt across her body. I turn the ignition and switch into reverse.

"What's up?" I say. She turns fully to face me, yanking her seatbelt to accommodate.

"I've called Aria seventeen times in the past 36 hours. All went straight to voicemail. Do you have any idea where she is?" Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I should have planned for this.

"She had to leave town for…" How long do bruises take to heal? "A little bit. She said not to look for her. She's okay."

"Wait. Do her parents know?" Lily demands.

I shake my head. "Negative. We're going to have to cover for her."

"How much more do you know?"

"Nada. That's all she said."

"Wait, when did you last see her?"

"Two days ago, she spent the night. She left a note saying she had to go, never said goodbye. She'll be back."

"Are we going to call the cops?" Lily leans even closer to me, eyes widening.

"I-I don't know. She'll never forgive me if I do." I shake my head. "I don't know."

"What do we tell her parents?"

"I don't know. As little as possible. We roll with the punches." Just then, our phones ding simultaneously. Sure sign of an A text.

We read it aloud in unison. "The little one's gone AWOL- turn her in, or I will –A. P.S. You can't hide a broken nose with concealer."

"It's going to look so suspicious if I'm not the one turning her in. I was the last one with her."

"Yeah, well, if you turn her in now, they're going to jump up your ass about why you didn't go to them sooner." She counters. "And what was that about the broken nose?"

"I have no clue. I think that was A's twisted way of threatening us." My heart hammers in my chest. Shit, shit, shit. Her nose can't be broken.

"Dara's a legal adult. We're seniors. She turned 18 in January. She should have told her parents where she was going, but I don't think they're going to launch a full swing investigation unless she's gone for too long. Let's just tell them she got in a fight with Ezra and needed some air." Lily waves her hands in the air as she speaks, emphasizing the effect of her words.

"They'll think we murdered her. We have to get ahold of her and convince her to call them." I state. Lily sinks back into her chair, and then jerks back up.

"Or… we could find a voicemail she left one of us saying something similar, and send that to them."

"'Hey, I'm gonna be out for a bit. Don't worry, I'm okay. Love you.'" I suggest.

"Yeah, something to that effect." She pulls her phone from her bag and starts listening to old voicemails, as I find someplace to pull over. She's gone through about 7 when she perks up.

"How about this?" She hits play: 'Hi, it's Aria. I have some things I need to get done. But I'll be back soon. Don't worry. Bye.' She looks at me expectantly. I nod. "That'll be enough to tide them over." She drops her phone into her lap, an expression of accomplishment on her face.

Dara's POV

"Lindsay? Lindsay Collins?" A nurse peeks her head into the lobby. Her standard issue pseudo-sympathetic smile looks like a pasted-on cutout from a magazine. Her shallow brown eyes meet mine. I can't help but imagine a dark and dreary factory where nurses like her are cranked out by the hundreds on an assembly line, bright and shiny, ready to welcome victims of domestic abuse into cold, sterile rooms where the doctors call you 'dear' and wait expectantly for you to flinch when they reach out to touch you. I stand up and follow her back through a fluorescent lit hallway into a 10x10 room that's exactly the same as every other room we passed.

"The doctor will be with you in a moment." She says to me, gesturing to a hospital gown on the cot, nodding and smiling as she ducks out the door. I change into it quickly, stuffing my clothes into my bag. The paper cover on the pleather examination table crinkles when I sit on it, and sticks to my sweaty palms. I hear some muffled voices in the background, and the steady ticking of the clock above the door, but other than that, it's almost unnaturally silent. A detailed map of the state of Vermont hangs framed on the wall. I wonder if every room has one. Perhaps some have zoomed in on the city of Burlington specifically. Maybe some have pictures of bottles of maple syrup. I hear a tentative knock on the door frame, and glance up to see a middle aged man dressed in white doctor's clothes. His smile is just as shallow and obnoxious as the nurse's, but in a different way. I think he has to wash it off with a special soap when he gets home every day, and then reapply it in the morning like makeup.

"The nurse told me you're here to get some bruises faded, and get your nose checked out." I nod. He washes his hands with dark orange surgery soap in the sink behind him and yanks on a pair of blue powdered gloves. He gets a firm grasp on my chin, and pokes and prods gently at my nose with his other hand, asking does this hurt and does that hurt. I nod and shake my head to answer his questions. He seems satisfied when he pulls his hands away.

"It isn't broken, luckily. Just some cartilage damage. I'll fix that right up." He pulls a needle and a jar of clear fluid from a drawer.

"This is a local anesthetic." He explains as he inserts the needle and fills it with liquid. He flicks it to clear it of air bubbles and wipes my nose with an iodine solution. He gestures for me to lie down, and says I might feel as slight pinch. And I do, as he pokes me in the side of the nose with the needle, and a tingling feeling is all that registers within a few moments. He begins stitching my nose up from the inside, where the cartilage evidently tore. It only take about 10 minutes, which is when he switches out his equipment, still smiling, and gets to work on my bruises. I slip in and out of consciousness. He finishes after what could have been anywhere between 30 minutes and six hours. I don't know.

I sit up and wait for him to leave. He takes a long time, filling out papers and scribbling on notepads. The feeling begins to creep back into my nose. I mumble something about pain medication and he pulls a new notepad from his drawer and scribbles on it. When he hands it to me, I see it's a two month prescription for Vicodin. It couldn't possibly take two month s to heal, but something inside tells me not to question it, and I don't.

"You can get that filled at the front desk, dear." He smiles and nods before gathering his metal clipboard, shaking my hand like we've just sealed a business deal, and leaving. I think I'm expected to change back into my clothes and go pay for the treatment I received. I think about ducking out the back door, taking off back to Pennsylvania, and letting my punching bag of an alter ego Lindsay take the blame for stiffing the clinic. But my body is sore from all the poking and prodding and I can feel the stitch holes in my nose rubbing against the bandages, forcing me to breathe out of my mouth. Pain medication seems essential. I slide back into my clothes carefully and head down the eerie hallway to the front desk. I pass a mirror outside of the bathroom and see my bruises are still stubbornly clinging to my skin, but they're a jaundice yellow instead of black and blue. I can cover that up with makeup. The lady at the front desk takes my prescription and fills it in the back room, full of enough pills to medicate a small army. It feels strange to pay in cash, but it's necessary to maintain my anonymity. I place five hundred dollars cash on the counter and she smiles at me like this all normal and okay and she sees this all the time, which I guess she must. She places the bottle in my hand, ice cold finger tips grazing mine. Lindsay Collins. Perfect. I pop three pills when I get to the parking lot even though the bottle says to take one.

I think about Spencer and the others worrying about me back home. I have to get back. I'm putting them in a bad situation, and I know it. The guilt prods the walls of my stomach from the inside out. When I reach the intersection that forks onto the highway, I don't take the left turn back to the halfway house I crashed at. I veer right, thankful I packed my backpack when I headed to my doctor's visit. The last thing in the world I want is to go back there, where the air smells of rot and stale cigarette smoke, and meals come in the form of half empty cans of flat soda left out on the fake wooden countertops. I never want to wash my hair with dishsoap under a rusty faucet or fight the tweekers for a springy mattress that reeks of urine ever again. I can't wait to get back home.


	5. Chapter 5

Aria's POV

I pull to the side of the road. Tracy gave me directions to an unknown man's house, told me he'll get me my fix. When I left his house, he was out of the stuff, and I had no interest in going back if he had none. He understood and told me instead where I could get my own. I think he was just glad to have his bed to himself again. The shaky handwriting says to take a left here. I pull onto a bumpy gravel road and drive until I see a trailer with plastic lawn chairs that look like they've been sat in a thousand times and windows that are boarded over. It doesn't look like anyone lives here. The sound of my car door opening is all I've heard since I pulled onto this road, other than birds chirping. I knock on the door tentatively, before deciding I need to put up a better front, and knocking with more vigor. A middle aged man in a stained white undershirt sips whiskey from a flask.

"What do you want, little girl."

"What do you have?" I ask. He chuckles and steps aside, gesturing for me to come in. It smells like stale booze and ammonia.

"I have speed, rock, coke, and Mary Jane." He gestures to a sock drawer.

"Thirty grams of rock," I say, pulling $2000 from my purse and placing it in his hands. He nods, coughing on his cigarette smoke. His hand lands on my shoulder when he gives it to me with the other. I let him run it down the length of my arm before I turn to go.

"Thank you."

"Come back soon, baby doll." He laughs, causing him to cough again. I duck out and hurry back to my car, my heart racing.

Spencer's POV

"Tell me a story." He says. I don't know what kind of story he wants. I want to tell him that. I don't want to sound boring, like I can't even think of a story to tell.

"When I was 8 or 9, I used to get dressed in front of the fireplace at our old house every night after I took my bath. I'd wrap myself in a towel and scoop up my pajamas and sit on the tile and warm myself. I hated dressing in the hot, humid bathroom, and I liked that my family was still close, and usually they were watching some TV show and laughing and eating, and I'd sit curled up in front of the fire, warmth evaporating the beads of water on my skin, and towel plastered to my back. Then, one day, my mother told me I was too old to be dressing myself in front of my father, and that I'd have to start doing so in my room. I felt embarrassed and didn't fight, even though my room was the coldest in that house, in the corner of the basement. I could hear their muffled laughter through the walls and half the time I'd just lie down and fall right asleep because I didn't want to be a part of it anymore. It felt corrupted." I turn my head on his lap to meet his icy blue eyes.

He smiles at me warmly. "That's nice."

"You turn." I return.

"When I was 7, my grandfather took me to the beach. I remember seashells washing up to the shore, and I'd try to chase them and grab ahold of them before the tide sucked them back under. I started to get frustrated; they'd all slip right through my fingers and back out into the sea. I saw a beautiful purple one that I wanted to bring back for my mother, and it was gone before I got a second glimpse. I started crying and my grandfather just rubbed my hair and said, 'Everything goes away, boy.' That's the last memory I have of him before he went senile."

"Wow." Is all I can think to say. He leans forward to kiss me and I pull his head closer to my body. My phone rings across the room.

"Time out." I hop up and answer it, Toby's neck craned to watch me without actually having to move.

"Hello?"

"Hey, it's Aria."

"Aria! Where the hell are you?" She's been gone for 3 weeks. We sent her parents the recording, and thankfully they respect her enough to let her make her own decisions. They didn't hound us, or try to get into contact with her.

"Oh, thank god. You're okay."

"I'm great. See you in 10 hours." I glance at the clock, a lime green led light on the front of the microwave that I used to stare at when I slept on the couch with friends over. I'd try to count to 60 in exactly the time it took for the clock to count one minute. Sometimes I'd get really into it, occupying myself for an hour without realizing. It read 11:29. A quick mental calculation tells me to expect her around 9:30 tomorrow morning.

"Okay. Be safe."

"I will. Thanks for everything, Spence."

"No problem." I say, even though it was a big problem.

"I love you."

"I love you, too."

"Bye."

"Bye." I hang up, and drop the phone back on the counter, grinning widely.

"Was that Aria?" Toby asks. I nod. I punch in Hanna's number and then Emily's, relaying the news onto each of them, and then to Caleb.

"I didn't know she was gone." Toby states when I slide back into my place next to him.

"She had to leave town for a few days. We were a bit worried, because she never said where, but she's back now. Or, at least, she's on her way."

"That's good." He says, not sounding like he thinks it's very good at all. He strokes my hair to the soundtrack of the crackling fireplace in front of us. I think about how I used to feel sparks exploding and adrenaline coursing through my veins when he touched me. Now there is only the ghost of that. The thought, the memory. The flash of déjà vu that says, "I've done this all before," but slips out of your mind as quickly as it slid in. I don't know how to bring it back.

Or if I want to.

"I'm going to make us some hot chocolate." I mutter as I vacate the couch. Curling into his side doesn't feel right anymore. I would do anything to bring that feeling back.

"Do you want marshmallows?"

"Do you have the little ones?"

"Let me check." I mumble, flipping open cabinet doors. "Yeah."

"Okay, I'll have some of those."

"Mmkay." I want him to leave. I want to give him his hot chocolate in a paper cup and drink mine from a mug and hope he gets it. I want to wrap myself in a blanket and leave him exposed. I want to tuck my hands into my pockets so I won't have to pull them away when he reaches out to hold them. No, what I really want is for it to come to me as naturally as breathing. Faking things is partly so difficult because you don't always know what you'd be doing if you weren't faking. It isn't as simple as acting. When you act, you're given a script. You have to make this up as you go along and hope it doesn't seem too forced. I don't even know what to tell him. I try to dig deep and scrape past the rust and decay in hope of a glimmer of truth left over, but it always gets lost in translation. I will just have to take it as it comes. The microwave beeps and I pull the mugs out. His hand lingers on mine when I hand his to him. He leans forward to kiss me and I kiss him back. I kiss him and sit in his lap and try to hold on to the proverbial grains of sand slipping through my fingers.

If I can't be happy, I will be the ghost of happy.

No one but me will know the difference.

Aria's POV

I tell myself that I am allowed to leave him if I find the right words, which feels like telling someone paralyzed from the waist down that they can have a new life if they can get up and walk out of the one they're already trapped in. I resign myself to this promise. I will write out six words and if they feel right I will say them to him. Just six words, that will be enough. Don't drag it out. I tell myself this and it feels like trying.

I scrawl out, in handwriting that looks like it should belong to an artist, or a doctor: You've hurt me. I am done.

I'm leaving you. I'm miserable here.

Pain is not love. Good bye.

Control is not love. Good bye.

Fear is not love. We're done.

Bruises are not love. Good bye.

Whatever you say, I deserve better.

I rewrite the one about fear and love in neater handwriting on a fresh sheet of paper. I sign my name at the bottom, and tuck it beneath his door.

Spencer's POV

"Aria!" I yell, pulling her into a tight hug. She feels smaller than usual. "You're okay. The bruises are gone."

"Yeah, I went up to Vermont."

"What the hell is in Vermont?"

"Other than a women's help clinic that lets you pay in cash, nothing. No one. Which was good."

"You should have told me where you were going."

"What difference would it have made?" She asks, and I don't have an answer. She cocks her head to the side, and ask, "What did you tell them?"

"You had to leave town for a few days to get some things done."

"That's all?"

"Yes." I pause. "Why can't they know?"

"You weren't supposed to know either." She says, as though it's a legitimate answer. I don't push.

"Did you break it off with Danny?"

"I left a note at his door. I haven't heard from him."

"You're okay?"

"Yeah, I am. Thanks for everything, Spence."

"Don't worry about it. Toby just left, do you want to go see a movie?"

"Yeah, sounds great." She nods, and we head out the door and to her car. The inside smells like sweat, stale fast food, and something else I can't quite put my finger on. Her hair is a mess, stringy and tangled in a high ponytail secured with a blue rubber band you find wrapped around bunches of asparagus. I can see the sunlight reflecting off of her concealer, but it's the only makeup she has on. I can't help but think she looks better this way. Why would she go out in public like this? Wouldn't she want to wash her hair and put some eyeliner on? I feel like she should. I don't realize I'm staring at her with a quizzical look on my face until she looks at me and asks what's wrong.

I shake my head. "You look different." I look her over head to toe to prove my point, and this is when I realize she's shaking, if only slightly. Her trademark warmth and affection fill her somewhat decrepit and taxed face. She squeezes my hand with her cold and bony fingers and I try to smile at her.

I try not to think about what could have happened in Vermont as I drive downtown to the theater. I don't like those thoughts of my best friend to be in my mind. Instead, I try to warm her hands in my own, driving with my knees.

"I'm no different, Spence." She smiles at me and I can feel my heart lift. It'll be okay. She broke it off with Danny, things are only going to get better from here.


	6. Chapter 6

When the door rings, every part of me is praying for it to be Aria. She left town again, and I was worried sick, though she was only gone for two days this time. I open the door and the sight before me nearly gives me a whiplash.

"Aria? What the hell happened to you?" Her face is bright red and puffy and her eyes are bloodshot.

"Allergy attack. I just need to crash here so my parents won't worry." She mumbles, her voice full of snot.

"Aria Marie Montgomery." I grab ahold of her wrist, and pull her inside. "I've known you since preschool. You're not allergic to anything. Tell me the truth."

"I left town to go meet up with Tracy in New York. We were only up there for a day, and we smoked 25 grams between the two of us." She can hardly utter three words without sniffing.

"Twenty five grams of what, exactly?" I ask, cocking my head to the side.

"What the hell does it matter, Spencer? Why do you care? We smoked. Crack. Crack, okay? Does that make you feel better? We smoked crack." I can hear her choking on the phlegm in the back of her throat when she tries to raise her voice. "I don't feel well." Her lower lip quivers and tears rush to rim her hazel eyes.

"You look like shit." I return.

"That helps." She chokes again, and the coughing fit that follows sends ominous chills coursing through my bones. It's rough and ratty, and a couple coughs in, she resigns to just wheezing, like her poor body can't even keep up.

"Can I borrow some money?" She asks, and a hunger fills her darkened eyes.

"Aria-" I shake my head. I just want her to stop wheezing.

Aria

My body feels as though it's made of shards of broken glass and the glue holding me together is starting to disintegrate. I can feel a coarse and all-consuming hunger, building not from my belly but from the center of my mind. It started as an emptiness thirty minutes after my last hit, but now it's clouding my judgment and the only thing I can think of, the only thing I'll ever think of, is getting another. I can feel the sting, the irreverence in my words, but I ask anyway.

"Can I borrow some money?"

The words feel wrong, but my moral compass is buried six feet deep beneath layers and layers of raw, primal desire. I don't want Spencer to hear these words rolling from my tongue, but I'm way too tired to stop them. I just need another.

It's desperation that drives me to crash my lips onto hers. I know she has feelings for me. I know she would do anything for me, if only I can make it feel right in her mind. I know she wants to kiss me. So I exploit her. I think: she will give you money if you do this. She will feel like she has to.

At this moment, I could do a lot worse for another hit. I tell myself this and it's reassurance enough to my famished mind.

**Spencer**

Her mouth tastes dry and metallic on mine. Her cracked, dry lips scratch my skin when she tilts her head to kiss my neck. Her fingers are knobby and cold as ice when they slide into my pants.

I know what she's doing. She's coming down from a high and she craves more. I'll be doing her more harm than good by funding her addiction. I know that.

But still, her bony fingers are close enough. I can feel the value I'd placed on reason slipping from my mind. This is the girl I've loved since middle school. I let her run her hands over my bra and unbutton my jeans. I let my mind wander backward in time, and I let myself imagine her before she lost the 15 pounds she didn't have, before she spent her time fucking and getting fucked, before the only thing that kept Tracy's handgun off of her temple was the prospect of another hit. If I close my eyes, it feels the same. It feels like finally getting what I'd wanted for all those years, even if it's desperation rather than attraction that's giving it to me.

My mindset does shift once, right in the middle. The white hot flame of my desire for her cools a bit.

This is wrong. You shouldn't be doing this. Take her to bed and nurse her back to health.

There it is. The voice of reason again. I know in my heart it's right. I just can't take seeing her like this. I know I'm going to give her what she wants. I knew when she first placed her skeleton hand on my shoulder to pull me in.

Anything that she wants this badly; I am no one to keep it from her. So, I let her push me back onto the couch in front of the crackling fireplace, crickets chirping in the heavy 7 pm air. I hold still and permit myself to enjoy the shivery feeling of her tongue running down my body and her hips bucking into mine. I knot my fingers into her hair and push her closer. I lose myself in the way it feels. Something inside of me tells me not to look a gift horse in the face. And even though this is hardly a gift horse, I listen.


	7. Chapter 7

Spencer

She doesn't thank me when I give it to her. I stuff three hundred crinkled dollars into her shaky palms, and she closes her fingers around them and leaves. I can hear her car roaring to life and backing out of my driveway and I listen to it fading into the distance. Even when she's driven off, I stand in the empty living room, listening to the echoes still bouncing off of each other inside my head.

I know how fast druggies can go through three hundred dollars. I try to hold back my flippant mind from conjuring images of her acquiring more. Hopefully, she'll come back soon, and the three hundred will have been enough.

Whether I give her money or not, she will find some. She will get it someplace else, and she will get her drugs. It might as well come from me. My family isn't exactly hurting for cash. Right?

I consider calling the police. They'll track her down and take her to rehab, and she can get better. She'll be furious with me for months and months, but she'll be better.

But I know this isn't foolproof. They might not catch her, or she might slip right back into her old ways once she gets out of rehab. And then she'll just hate me. Or at least she'll distrust me. If I'm going to look after her, I'll need to maintain her trust. That way, I can keep her close. I'll let her smoke in my bedroom, and I will let her fuck me so she doesn't feel like she's freeloading when she takes my money. Better she fucks me than some stranger. I will let her do what she wants, but she will do it under my watch.

Dara

Tracy followed me into town this time, and I told him I'd meet him back at the motel he checked into, and we'd head back up to Vermont for a week or so. I told him I'd get some money, even though I didn't know exactly how at the time. Now I have three wadded up hundred dollar bills protruding from my pants pocket, and he can work his magic and find us our next hit. Tracy knows more people than I ever imagined possible. Even more than Alison had. He always knows exactly where to find drugs, a place to sleep, a friend to cover for us.

I walk into the motel room, and I see Tracy in his grungy sweatshirt hunched atop the bed, reading a book.

"I've got three hundred."

"Who'd you have to fuck?" He asks without looking up, a slight sound of amusement escaping his lips.

"Spencer."

"Who's he?"

"She is my best friend, since preschool. I hated doing that to her." This inspires him to initiate eye contact with me.

"I'm so sorry." His level of sincerity takes me by surprise. Tracy is rarely ever serious.

"You have nothing to be sorry for. It was my decision." I mutter in response.

"Okay. Well, let's go. I know a guy just a few minutes south, actually. He doesn't do crack, but he cooks meth. It's really hard to find crack around here. It took me years to find a guy up in Vermont. But I really don't want to go all the way back up there, anyway. Trust me, you'll love meth. It's a quarter the price of crack." He says, a defensive humorous tone to his voice.

"I trust you." I respond. He kisses my head when he gets up, and we leave the room and hop into his car, immediately outside.

We reach the house shortly, after a very quiet and very uncomfortable car ride.

I duck behind him, my chin resting on his shoulder. I extract the money from my front pocket and place it in his dry, calloused hand. The couch in the corner has had its cover ripped off, and the cushion looks like Swiss cheese. A girl with stringy hair plastered to her face sips vodka from a broken glass that's making her lips bleed. She has a empty, glazed over look in her eyes.

"I've got three hundred." Tracy says, and the man, who looks no older than nineteen, turns into the kitchen and pulls a sandwich bag from the drawer by the sink. His plaid boxers peek out over his torn and stained jeans, and his sweatshirt has a compilation of various stains decorating the front. He smells of cheap coffee and toxic chemicals. Such is to be expected, I suppose.

When we head back outside, the light drizzle that had filled the air before had escalated to a violent downpour. It takes effort to see fifty feet ahead, squinting your eyes and deciding what is rain and what is not rain. It surrounds me like a blanket and immediately begins to seep through my clothes. Tracy, always the gentleman, opens the passenger side door for me. I hop in, and the rain follows me. I slam it shut and he does the same, quickly.

"Let's get back to the hotel." He says, not sounding entirely sure of his ability to do so. I nod my agreement, the raw cold of the rain raising goose bumps on my skin. I fumble with the car heater, and he backs out of their gravel driveway.

"Stella's really gone downhill since high school." I assume he's referring to the girl on the sofa. "She's 5'6 and a natural bleach blond, perfect body, very beautiful. She was such a sweet girl, everybody loved her. Then she fell into this crippling depression when she was 16 and started sleeping around. I'd bet she's been fucked more times than she's had a hot meal since. She met Javi, the guy in there, and he got her into every drug they could get their hands on. She had three brutal miscarriages along the way, and now she's taking mega-doses so the drugs will stop fucking around and just kill her already. She just had her 22nd birthday and I don't think anyone expects her to make it to 25."

"Wow." I try to summon more a more adequate response, but that's all I have.

"I can't help but feel for Javi. He's trying to look after her, but you can't save anybody who doesn't want to be saved." Tracy coughs at the end to cover up the hint of sadness in his voice. "I used to have this massive crush on her. She's 5 years younger, but she didn't really act it. She was a freshman the year after I graduated, and she hung out with my little brother."

"I need a hit." The words feel obscene, with Stella the Cautionary Tale looming over us, but I can't help it. Tracy pulls a glass pipe from the glove compartment and fills it for me. I stick the orange flame from Tracy's zippo lighter into the end and inhale sharply. It tastes sickly sweet and metallic on my tongue. It fills my lungs and I sink into my chair. The exhale that follows is relaxed and at ease. Tracy takes it from me and follows suit.

I can tell he's still thinking of Stella. "How did Javi meet Stella?"

"Party, some might call it. It was more of a communal coke binge. They got stuck with each other at one point. She liked him and he tolerated her. He was trying to be nice. But there's a difference between chivalry and masochism, and eventually it warped to where he let himself fall for her, and then watching her self-destruct was a lot more difficult. He was invested. Which is why he still hangs out in that piece of shit house Stella's parents left for her when they kicked the can. He has to support her now."

"What was it that launched her into her depression?"

"Her parents' death, actually. Their plane went down forty three minutes in, only six people lived to tell the tale. Her brother was thirteen. Stella dedicated everything she had left to looking after him, and one day she came home from school to find him hanging from the ceiling fan, with a tie he bought as part of a costume for a school play. It looked like a black and white photograph, Stella said. I guess it must have. I can't imagine something like that in color. Anyway, she got up on the chair he had jumped off of, and she untied him. She didn't think to call the cops until her best friend called to check in on her and suggested it. She just sat on the warped hardwood floor and held him. That was what really set her over the edge. Someone called me to let me know, but I didn't pick up. So they left a message: Stella broke. No explanation or anything. What a fucking weirdo. It had been two years since I'd seen her, but I drove out. Sure enough. She broke. Nobody knew what to do, and eventually we all scattered and she started hanging out in back alleys because she didn't know where else to go. She bounced around between a lot of guys' houses. Then she wound up with Javi, who was homeless at the time, only sixteen, and they went back to her house. The one her brother killed himself inside. Javi says he catches her talking to empty spaces sometimes."

I was silent. I couldn't find the words. I couldn't find any.

"Dara? What are you thinking?"

"I-I just… I can't believe those things actually happen to people. Let alone nice girls like Stella."

"She was going to be a vet. She talked about it a lot. She couldn't wait."

"What about you? What were you going to be?" I ask.

"Not a degenerate cokehead who drags sweet girls down with him." He says. "I was thinking, more like a teacher. That sounds cliché, but it's what I wanted. I love little kids."

"Why didn't you?"

"Once you try drugs, there's no going back. Nothing else feels fun anymore." He sighs.

I could relate to that. Spending time with Spencer used to be my favorite thing in the world. Now it feels like there's this gap in our relationship. I still love her, and I would kill or die for her. But spending time with her isn't fun like it used to be. I feel tired and empty if I'm not on something. I can't get past the void left when I come down from a high to actually enjoy my life. "You're right."

"When I was 12, my dad got drunk and he beat me so bad I couldn't walk for three days. When I finally did, I went to my aunt's house. I didn't know she was on anything, but when I got there, she handed me a week's worth of valium and told me I could have the guest bedroom."

"What'd you do?"

"I took it all at once, and I went into the guest bedroom, and I slept for another three days. I knew she didn't mean for me to down it all in one go, but I was so tired. Breathing became monotone and mundane, and I just wanted to sleep. I could have slept for another year if they'd let me. But my mom showed up and shook me awake and took me home. No one ever said a word about any of it. I did start hanging out at my aunt's a lot, though. She always had something lying around, and trying it out became all I had to look forward to."

"Once, when I was 14, my mother was in a car accident and they thought she might die. I went down to the basement and got into the liquor cabinet and choked back shots until I couldn't hold my head up. Then I choked back some more. Then there were two of my family in the hospital and I'm genuinely surprised my dad and brother didn't lose their minds. I had a blood alcohol level of .48 and I was supposed to die. But I didn't. Instead of swearing off alcohol, I started drinking every chance I got, and I'd go out and get wasted and blank out for entire nights. Then I would drink alone in my bedroom and I liked it better than anything else, and that's when I knew I was in trouble. I got shipped off to rehab. I never got all the way better."

"We all have such rotten lots in life." He mumbles. I can't help but agree. There are definitely people who have it worse than I do, much worse, but that doesn't change what I have.

I wish Spencer were here. More than anything else, more than another hit, more than a way out of this fucking putrid pickup cab. I want her to take me in her arms and hold me as close as she can and kiss my head and tell me she loves me.

Instead of asking Tracy to take me home, I lean over and place my head on his shoulder. He reaches over his chest with his left hand and strokes my head. I don't want to be Spencer's Stella. That's certainly where I'm headed. Tracy and I can look after each other, and if we're both going down, we don't have to feel like we're holding the other back.

I will stay with Tracy, and we will go down together.


	8. Chapter 8

** Aria**

The night is chilly with fresh fall air and I can hear cicadas chirping. With Spencer and Emily laughing in the back seat and Hanna riding shotgun, I steer through the winding road in Tracy's 2 wheel drive pickup truck. I am not adept enough a driver to fully compensate for the truck's lack of control, but I pay as much attention as I can. The lace corset wound around my back constricts my breathing, and the puffy skirt of my dress itches my legs. It's Halloween, and my white, oily makeup is cracking on my face. There's gooey fake blood oozing from my lower lip, and plastic fangs are digging into my skin. I should have gone as a ghost. Thrown a sheet over my head and lurked anonymously through the crowd for the whole night, tearing a mouth hole to pour booze down. I could have stood in the corner where the shadows fall and shown up in everyone's photos without revealing my identity.

But I am a vampire. Equally mundane and cliché, but a lot less comfortable. Hanna is a sexy angel and Emily is a candy striper. Paige has agreed to dress as a doctor, and will be meeting us at the party half past ten. Spencer is dressed as Audrey Hepburn, and is wearing a winter coat over her little black dress. Her diamond necklace was a gift from her father when she was 12, and is accented by a much bulkier cubic zirconia necklace, which she bought at a costume shop.

When we reach Landon George's cabin, she buckles the coat and slides her silver heels back onto her delicate feet. The ground is soft and full of rotting leaves and branches, and my shoes sink into it, slowing me down.

The air inside the cabin is thick and stuffy, and I can smell 10 different kinds of booze. Pop music blares from his surround sound speakers and I have to shout to communicate with my friends. Emily and Hanna veer off to the right, to the swimming pool. Spencer's magnetized to my side, and when several drunk girls stumble down the hallway, she grabs my wrist so they can't get between us. The kitchen is where the people are most concentrated, attracted to the liquor cabinet like insects to a lamp. I squeeze through the crowd and yank a bottle of brandy by the neck from the counter and stuff it into my purse, praying no one will object. Spencer is leaning against a doorjamb, waiting for me. As I wade over to her, I feel a rough hand grasping my ass. I whip around to identify it and a grinding crotch makes contact from what's now behind me. I hear several loud, drunken chuckles and I become a blur of flying limbs, smacking whoever's in my general proximity as I try to reach Spencer.

"Crack whore!" I can't identify the owner of the voice, but I throw a hit in its general direction. One more hand lands on my breast, and I grab it and dig my long nails into the skin. It retracts angrily and smacks me across the back of the head, sending me stumbling. I walk straight into her, cursing and mumbling and she puts an arm around me, leading me away.

"Spencer, I hate those guys." I mumble. We turn the corner and ascend the staircase. She doesn't say a word. She peeks her head into a few bedrooms until pulling me into one.

"They're Neanderthals. I heard what they said to you." She states, answering the question I didn't ask. "Did you get something to drink?"

I nod. "Let's just stay in here." I extract the brandy from my purse and hand it to her. She takes a long swig without flinching.

"That takes practice." I congratulate. She nods and gives it another go. We sit in almost-silence, with the shitty music shaking the floorboards and reverberating through our bodies. No one flipped the overhead on, but the outdoor lights outside the second story window offer some brightness. Her eyelashes cast long shadows on her pale face and the yellow light reflects off her warm chocolate eyes. She stares out of the window. I take a swig from the bottle and choke it down, less smoothly than she had.

She crawls across the glazed wood floor and sits with her knees touching mine. She asks if I'm having fun. I tell her not yet and down three more swallows of the brandy. I hear owls hoo-ing over the music. If I had to guess, I'd say this is Landon's bedroom. There are posters of half-naked women in red bikinis washing cars scotch taped to the walls, and one half-open drawer is drooling dirty clothes that reek of teenage boy. A pile of shoes and sports equipment is spilling out from under the bed. I assume he tried to clean before throwing this party. A set of expensive Bose speakers sits next to a mostly full bottle of beer. I plug my cell phone in and attempt to drown out the drunken shouts and cries emanating from the hallway and through the floor. _Just Breathe _by Pearl Jam fills the room.

She must feel the ever-persistent silence between us. No amount of hoo-ing owls or pulsating music could make it go away. "You're not going to get back on anything, are you?" She can't bring herself to meet my eyes.

"I honestly don't know, Spencer. I'll try, but…" My voice fades out and I can't bring it back.

"But what?" She asks, and downs another ten percent of the bottle.

"I don't want to make you a promise I can't keep. You deserve better than that."

"Promise you'll try as hard as you can. And promise you'll call me every time you want to, okay?"

"I promise."

"Just stay with me."

I stand on my knees and turn to sit on her lap. "I'll get you back every penny you gave me. I don't know how soon I'll be able to, but everything else is going on the backburner until I do."

"That's okay-" She shakes her head dismissively.

"No. I shouldn't have done that. I'll return it in double. Triple. What I did was wrong."

"I should have stopped you. You were intoxicated. No one makes responsible decisions while intoxicated. As soon as you walked through those doors, the responsibility fell on me. I let you down."

"No." I reiterate. "I am paying you triple what I took. That doesn't change what I did, but it's the least I can do."

"Dar-" I cut her off with a kiss. She pulls back, shocked.

"Shh." I lift a hand to cup her cheek and kiss her again. She's had a lot more to drink than I have, and her protests are becoming incoherent, so I climb off of her. Her head rolls forward and she leans into my shoulder. I help her onto Landon's bed and tuck her beneath the covers. I reach for the key on top of the door jamb as I leave, using it to lock the door from the outside. I tuck it into my purse with the brandy and head off in pursuit of Hanna and Emily.

I find them in the hot tub, each straddling their date. Not wanting to feel like a third wheel, I turn on my heels and bump in to a tall man in a stained sweatshirt.

"Tracy? What the hell are you doing here?" I shove him playfully, and he wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me into a kiss.

"I came to see you, babe! I brought you some shit, baby girl. How you doing?"

"This party blows." I shake my head. The shadows cast over us are constantly shifting, fluid as the people creating them move to the music.

"Well…. I know how to fix that." He pulls a little baggie from his pocket and slams it into my hand, grinning wildly.

"Tracy, no. I don't want to do any tonight." I say, even though my face is growing hot with hunger and desire.

"Baby, don't leave me hanging! I brought this for us to do together."

"Stop it. I don't want any. I promised Spencer I'd stay off."

"Aria!"

"Go." I point towards the door. I'm being crude, but if he stays, I'll end up taking again.

"Whatever. More for me!" He turns to leave and throws the middle finger up in the air.

God, what a dick. I have a negative level of interest in bumping and grinding with Landon's drunken companions. I would just go home, but I'm the girls' ride home. Should I go find Spencer?

Yes, I guess I have to find her. It takes me five minutes to navigate my way through the winding hallways of Landon's cabin, which is too big for its own good. I keep running into dead ends, only to find another dead end staring me down as soon as I turn around.

It reminds me of my love life.

When I do find the door I shut her behind, it takes me another minute and a half to extract the key from my purse. I almost convince myself I've lost it, but I distinctly remember putting it in there. I do find it. The door clicks, and despite the deafening background noise, Spencer's head lifts from the pillow.

"Aria?" She slurs.

"Yeah, it's me." I reply.

"Good. Because I was thinking I'd have to actually get up and..." She waves her hand around exasperatedly then drops it back onto the matress. "Find you."

"Then it is good I came back. Because you, my friend, are a disaster." I laugh. "You couldn't locate you nose, let alone wade through a sea of twerking idiots to find your undersized best friend."

"Nose is here." She points. "Best friend is here." She points. "Sobriety test: cleared."

"You know, Spence, I'd love to just dump you in my car and haul you home, but Emily and Hanna are in the hot tub playing tonsil hockey with their significant others. And as much as my night is sucking, I am above ruining theirs."

"Such is to be expected of couples, Ar."

"I suppose."

"What now?"

"I was hoping you'd know."

"Sorry for the letdown."

"That's okay. I love you anyway."

"I love you, too."

"That's nice to hear."

"Is it? I though you loved Tracy."

I open my mouth to speak, but the words catch in my throat. I rearrange them, then try again. "I can love you both."

"But you love him more. You're always leaving town to be with him."

"But I always come back." I know I ought to give her something within the ballpark of reasurring, but that's all I have.

"But you _leave._ You're ruining your life for him, Aria." She rolls over and smashes her face into the corner of the mattress. "Aria. Aria." She says my name slower and more quietly each time, wanting to savor the way it feels rolling off her tongue. "You love him so much you're willing to do anything to stay with him."

"I do love him." I say, "But he's destroying me. And you're so easy to love. When I'm sad you give me a hug, not a pipe. I need you. I need _you."_ I say.

"I think I'm in love with you." She mutters into a mouthful of fabric.

The words feel familiar and like I've already heard them and I'm just remembering them being said. I don't feel surpised or shocked or anything new. "I know." _Say something, asshole. _I try, but when I try to summon the words, my brain feels like slush in my head and my tongue feels like it's been tied in a knot.

"I think I'm in love with you, too." I say. The words don't flow like I want them to, but rather flop out of my face and in to the empty space between us.

She laughs. She actually fucking laughs. Then she stops, looks at me, and starts laughing again. "No, you're not."

"Yes, I am."

"You aren't."

"What exactly makes you so sure?"

"Aria, I've known you longer than I've known the alphabet. You always know what's right, what's best for you. I used to think that was a gift, but then I realized it's just that you love yourself enough to want what's best for you. And now you love Tracy more than you love yourself, and you're willing to do anything to stay with him. Your priorities have shifted."

I want to argue with her, but she's at least half right. I love Tracy enough to ruin my life for him. Loved. I loved him enough to start smoking crack. I loved him so much that all of his pain was my pain and I felt it as intensely as he did. So as soon as he found some sorry excuse for a cure, there was no way around me falling in to it, too. I've heard it before: we become like those we love. Even after we stop wanting to. And even when we stop wanting to, we still have all the scars and memories and the damage that has been done and we'd be lying if we said there wasn't a time when we wanted those scars. We don't know why. We just did. We become like those we love. Which is why it's so important to love good people.

"I love Tracy. But I need you, Spence."

"You're ruining your life for him. Because of him."

"But I'm fixing it for _you_. Because of _you._"

"Promise you won't leave again."

"I can't promise not to leave. But I can promise to at least be conflicted about it." I laugh, then when she isn't laughing, I stop.

"Don't joke about that, Aria."

"I'm sorry. I just don't want to lie to you. You deserve better than that. I can't issue a one-size-fits-all guarantee. Decisions are circumstantial. Times change. _People_ change, Spencer."

"I want to spend the rest of my life with you." She murmurs.

"How long have you thought that?" _How long will you continue to think that?_

"Since seventh grade, when Joey White wanted to break up with me and you threatened to rip off his face by his ears and nail it to his locker to turn him into a cautionary tale parents tell their children to scare them into treating women right. He broke up with me anyway, probably because you were like, four foot _nothing. _But you did punch him clean across the face, and he had a black eye for two weeks. I was like, _damn._ I loved you before that, and that wasn't the first time I had thought you were incredible. But that was when I _knew_ I wanted to be your friend all the way into infinity."

"Was there ever a time when you never wanted to see me again?"

"Yes. Ninth grade when I caught you Landon behind the gym. I was so jealous I could feel it in my toes. I ran off to your hosue and when you finally showed up, I just started screaming at you. I said horrible things, and I knew they were horrible, but I just kept saying them. You just sat there calmly and took it. Then, when I was done, you stood up, looked me in the eye, and said: _fuck off._"

I laugh. "I remember that."

"I'm sorry I was such an asshole."

"You were right. Landon was a total horndog, and he did just want to get in to my pants. And I was acting like a total cumdumpster for letting him feel my boobs." I explain.

"Just because what I said was right, doesn't mean I was right for saying it."

"Okay."

"Have you ever never wanted to see me again?"

"Yep. Ninth grade, two weeks after the screaming incident. You had calmed down, and you sat me down and told me to break up with him. It made me angrier because I could tell you had really thought through what you were saying. You weren't just pissed. You meant every word."

"You know, when you're arguing with someone, you can never say the things you really mean. Because afterwards, when you're apologizing, you can never really take those things back." She says.

I can't figure out whether that's true or not. Is going through the motions of an argument and saying whatever words you know will fade away once you've finished speaking really a substitute for the real thing?

"I don't know if I agree with that."

"Most people don't. It isn't the most appeasing theory. People like to sit up on their high horses and call it dishonest and bathe in the glory oozing from every orifice of their purity and integrity."

"You're very opinionated." I chuckle.

"That's just because I'm always right. I have all the answers, and if people would just listen to me, their lives would get a lot better." She says, only half kidding.

"No objections." I reply.

"Of course not." She says, then rolls over onto her back. A strand of hair rests over her eyes. "You're so understanding. Even if you don't understand something. You understand that you don't understand it, and you don't try to debauch it or ruin it for anyone else."

"I try, I'd hate for someone to take something away from me just because they don't agree with it."

"Exactly. You're such a good person. You're so warm and affectionate and loving."

"Don't lie to me." I command.

"Not lying." She murmurs, vainly attempting to keep the slur out of her words.

"Okay. It's time for you to go sleep, Spence." I pat her shoulder.

"Is that code for I-Am-Going-To-Leave-And-Lock-You-In-From-The-Outsi de-And-Finish-Partying-Downstairs?" She mumbles. I can't help but smile at her.

"No, it's code for It's-Time-For-_Us_-To-Go-To-Sleep." I say, climbing over her and burying my legs beneath the wrinkled sheets. I'm glad I locked the door on my way in, so no one will stumble in looking for some place to make out or throw up. The task of falling asleep with the party downstairs still alive and well beneath us presents itself as very difficult, especially considering neither Spencer nor myself are drunk enough to pass out from it. We're drunk, but not wasted. I guess it doesn't really make a difference either way, because studying the way the light spilling in from the window above the headboard reflects off of Spencer's face could keep me busy well into the wee hours of the morning. I hear her soft breathing, in and out, and the numbers leap to my mind.

One, two, three.

Thoughts of Danny threaten to penetrate the walls I have built around my mind. Thoughts of being pinned down and tied of and hit and burnt. I try not to shudder, because I know she's just sober enough to notice, and she might start crying. I know she would, actually. She would know just what's on my mind as soon as she met my eyes, just like she always does. She would know it and she would feel it in her heart as though it belonged to her. So I hold my muscles still, and feel the effects of the frigid convulsion ripple down my spine.

The colder these thoughts become, the more goose bumps raise on my skin, the stiffer my fingers and toes become, the more Spencer's soft arms and her baby skin increase in appeal.

I push my weight closer to her and cup one of her hands in mine. It's a cue to her, and she pulls me tightly to her chest without uncapping her chocolate eyes.

I spend the next few hours drifting in and out of an almost-sleep, yanked back into consciousness every once and again by some drunken screech or bass drop from downstairs. I sit on the fence between asleep and awake, my dreams blending into reality and blurring around the edges. I see Spencer's peaceful face alongside Danny's maniacal one, dripping little bits of sadism and fanaticism. I almost jerk back when I stop feeling her skin against mine, realizing she's still holding me only when I pull my arm back a few inches, the sensation refreshing. The sheets feel heavy like water and I'm sweating like they're made of thick down and it's hot and humid in here and I'm shaking because I'm so cold that I can't feel my toes. Then I see Tracy in the corner lighting up and I'm so cold I can't _move_ my toes. I blink again and again to clear my mind of the image, and I feel tears pooling on the pillow.

It feels like days before I finally feel her stirring beside me again, and we can escape the wretched house and just go home. I have no idea how she slept though all of those things, when I can still feel the lingering shadow of my nightmares following me out. She smiles at me and I know she knows I didn't sleep, but she just smiles at me and doesn't say a thing. She hands me some Benadryl when we get back to her house and tucks me into her bed.

It took a good night's sleep to remind me I'd stayed up for two days before. I slept for twelve hours, then woke up and went to the bathroom, and fell back into her bed and slept for four more. Towards the end I could feel her beside me, and the warmth from her body and the way the sheets felt so clean and fresh and soft and crisp and the way the sun leaked in through her blinds all melded together into the safest and warmest I've felt in months.


	9. Chapter 9

** Aria**

Oh, shit. Oh, shit, shit, shit.

I am clutching my knees on the bathroom floor. I am tracing the edges of the tiles on the bathroom floor with my eyes. My head feels tight and weightless like it does when I stand up suddenly after laying down for a very long time. Where is Spencer? Why is she not here? I want her to be here so I can feel her hands on my skin and not the pile of rocks in my stomach. I would call her, but when I open my mouth to test my voice, it's nowhere to be found. And my phone is in my bedroom.

Shit.

The room feels like it's growing smaller, and my stomach turns in on itself. I retch, and spew vomit on my knees before I reach the toilet. The glare of the light reflecting off the mirror grows softer the longer I stare at it, and the stench of vomit has already filled the room.

I feel sick. I feel like I'm seven years old and I have the stomach flu, and I'm breathing germs all over my favorite blanket and my stuffed bear is going to catch the flu from me. I feel like my friends are outside my house, laughing and playing tag, and I am too sick to care I'm not with them. I feel the heat collected in my blankets after a long day of laying in bed by the window with light pouring in and flooding my room and setting the mood for something much better than this. I feel my shirt sticking to my back and it's 103 degrees in this room and I'm shivering. A chill races another chill down my vertebrae.

What the hell? Why does this have to be me? I don't have the capacity to deal with this. I don't have it in me. I can see my shirt shaking from the pounding of my heart. All I can hear is my own breath catching inside my head and I feel like there is a heavy, toxic fog replacing my insides and filling my fingers and my teeth and I just want to smash my head in. I kick the toilet as hard as I can, and the plastic lid breaks. I find myself standing in a sudden miracle of exertion, and I swing my fist into the mirror. Bloody spikes of glass obtrude from my knuckles when I pull it back. I kick the cabinet below the sink in with one blow, and my bare toes go numb. The rocks in my stomach feel lighter, smoother. I swing again, and again. Swing, kick, slam. Slam, swing, kick, hit and blow until the rocks have disappeared and all I feel is the burning in my fists and I'm sobbing on the floor, surrounded by a jewelry case of glass shards.

It can't be true. It isn't.

I'm not pregnant. It can't be true.

"Spencer!?" I shriek, even though I'm in Tracy's shitty bathroom with the freshly broken mirror and the trail of grime leading to the drain on the shower floor and the petrified bubbles inside the sink and the spider webs in the window panes. "Spencer!" I scream again, my voice shrill and sharp as a razor. I repeat it as a mantra, again, again, again. Spencer, Spencer, Spencer. My voice gradually loses its edge, its verve, and resigns itself to a whiny cry.

"Spencer?"

"Aria?" Says the voice from the hall, sounding exhausted and unaffected, but pushing the door open and into my side anyway. "Aria, shit." He pauses and waits for me to move and let him in, then pushes the door the rest of the way open and me into the wall behind me. "What the hell happened?"

"Take me home." I sputter. "Take me home."

He sighs exasperatedly and scoops me up, bridal style, like Spencer had. I clench my bloodied hands into fists behind his neck. The glass shifts and grinds. I'm high, no less high than I was before those two pink lines sent me reeling. But the warmth has gone. I just feel fuzzy. Like someone dumped water on the blueprints of my life and hung them out to dry. Blurry.

Maybe it's the white hot tears and blood sitting in my vision, but when I look Tracy in the eye, I hardly recognize him.

Tracy isn't known for his physical strength, but he carries me through his creaky ranch home almost effortlessly. Six months ago, I weighed 107 pounds. Now, I couldn't tip the scales at 90 pounds wearing soaking wet snow gear. I flop out of his arms and into the back seat, which smells of tobacco smoke and old french fries. I lie down and put my head on the putrid sweatshirt he shed and tossed at me.

The only sounds that occupy the cab are the steady thumping of the windshield wiper and the whirring of the heater. Tracy burns through five cigarettes in thirty minutes, and I correlate the passing minutes to the number of times I hear the strike of his lighter. One every six minutes, unless he lights one straight off the end of another, and then it goes faster, just for those two. Once, two, three, goes the count in my head, but I don't bother trying to fight back tears. One, two, three. Tracy doesn't move his eyes from the road. I watch rain drops race each other down the windshield.

It feels like being eleven years old and having appedicitis and being driven to the hospital. I choke back a sob. Tracy still won't look at me. One, two, three. Times two is two, four, six. Squared is one, four, nine. Cubed is one, eight, twenty-seven. If I think about the numbers I won't have to think about the baby. One, sixteen, eighty-one. One, thirty-two, two-hundred and forty-three. The numbers get so big, so fast. So powerful, the little numbers are. Multiply them by themselves a few times and you have triple digits. But not one. Even one itself can't change one.

One times one a hundred times is still one. One times a hundred is a hundred. What's the difference?

These thoughts become too philosophical and I return to multiplying the numbers by themselves again and again. One, sixty-four, seven-hundred and twenty-nine. The math isn't too hard, but it is challenging enough to occupy my mind. One, one-hundred and twenty-eight, two thousand one-hundred and eighty-seven. I know we're still at least two hours outside of Rosewood, so I let the numbers methodically lull me to sleep. One, two hundred and fifty six, six thousand five hundred and sixty one. What a difference one digit makes. What if I had included the number four? Too late now. One, five hundred and twelve, nineteen thousand, six hundred and eighty three. It's taking me longer now, and when I open my eyelids to check my surroundings, they slither back together before I can help it.

I want Spencer. I want my head in her lap, her fingers running through my hair. The thought threatens to pull me from my stupor, but I block it out, with something close to effectiveness.

I only realize how close I am to unconciousness when Tracy hits a pothole and I jerk awake, with more resistance from my body than I expected. I fade back asleep, baby all but forgotten, which is why I'm almost reluctant to leave the car and stumble to Spencer's porch. But I do, and my confliction fades when she swings open the door and takes my pathetic, rained-on figure ino her arms. I don't say goodbye to Tracy, and I feel bad about this for about 0.4 seconds, until his car has left the driveway and Spencer is smiling beautifully at me, leading me into her living room.

"I'm so happy to see you." She gushes, rubbing her hands up and down my arms. "Let me go get the first aid kit."

I collapse onto her hardwood floor, scared to stain the white sofa. She returns quickly, and I feel the warmth returning to my body. Plastic tweezers and a shaky hand are all I have to rely on to remove all the glass from my fists. She lasts about ten minutes before leaving to retrieve a pair of metal tweezers from her makeup kit for the smaller pieces. Antiseptic and fluffy white bandages hide the wounds when she's done, and then she's pulling splinters from my feet that I don't remember getting. Somewhere in the middle of all this, I whisper, "I'm pregnant."

She drops her tweezers. "What? Whose?"

"I don't know." In the past two months, I've had sex with four people, three of whom were capable of impregnating me. It's anyone's guess whose kid it is.

"Do you want to keep it?" She asks.

"I don't know." I shake my head.

"How far along are you?" She asks, looking at me like I've been withholding this information from her.

"I don't know." I reiterate. She seems to catch on that I hardly know more than she does, and returns to pulling plywood from my nailbeds. "I don't know anything."

"Okay, well, tomorrow I'm taking you to the women's care clinic. We're going to find out how far along you are, then try to pinpoint who you were with at the time of conception. Then you'll decide if you want to keep it, or if you even want to have it."

"Slow down. I'm very tired. I want to go to sleep. I want this to go away."

"It doesn't work like that, I'm afraid." She smiles gently.

"Shit."

"Nicely phrased." She laughs softly, smooth fingertips trailing my skin.

"Would it be absolutely ludicrous for me to ask you to kiss me right now?" I murmur.

"No, I don't think so." She says, eyes still trained on my bloodied feet.

"Spencer, will you kiss me?" I ask. In lieu of a response, she sets her tweezers down and scoots over to where my face is smashed into the hardwood floor.

"You'll have to sit up, Aria." She chuckles warmly. I lift my reluctant weight from the floor and rest my back against the wall.

"How's this?" I ask. She smiles at me widely, affection filling her chocolate eyes to the brim.

"I think I can make it work." She says, her attention directed primarily at my lips now.

"Let's see." I say, and she leans in with parted lips, and meets mine. I deepen the kiss carefully, and she shifts her body to straddle my lap. I can feel the fireworks igniting in my chest and I lift her hand and place it on my breast.

"Aria," She says, pushing away. "I don't think this is the right time."

"I'm really not that hurt."

"I just pulled an inch long piece of toilet lid from behind your Achilles' tendon."

"It doesn't hurt."

"Endorphins," She says, her gaze falling from mine. She pushes further back to sit on my thighs. "They'll go away."

"Orgasms make the best painkillers." I return, running my fingers down the front of her shirt. "You'll be doing me a medical favor."

"Is that so?" She asks sexily. "Well, you'd have to let me finish doctoring your wounds, first. You know I don't do anything half-ass." She climbs off me and resumes pulling cabinet from the soles of my feet. I sigh and let my head hit the wall.

"Don't get too upset. We'll pick up right where we left off." She murmurs, the pile of Things Covered in Aria Blood next to her hand growing steadily. I trace the grains in the hardwood floor with my fingernails, which don't even extend past the ends of my fingers anymore. I used to compulsively chew them until I had blood dripping down to my wrists when I was a kid. My mother used to put oven mitts on me at home, and tie them tight with bits of crafting ribbon. They had spaghetti sauce stains on them and smelled like garlic and tomatoes. She probably should have washed them first, because I'd usually end up chewing on my fingers through them, especially in my sleep, and wake up with crusty dried tomato bits in my mouth.

I can't feel anything below my neck, other than a dull tingling. If I weren't making a conscious effort not to, I'd probably let my face smash directly into the floor, which always smells just like pine sol if you get close enough to tell. Spencer is smiling subtly at my feet, wearing an expression I can only describe as warm.

A rogue thought of Stella's brother and the ceiling fan threatens to spoil the soft buzz I'm experiencing, but I push it out aggressively. She's been lurking in the unlit corners of my mind since I saw that trail of blood dripping from her lip and down the broken edge of her vodka glass, which combined with her pasty complexion and dark eyes gave her an uncanny resemblance to a vampire. The vacant, thousand yard stare in her icy blue eyes and the dark purple bags that sit beneath them, and the stripes of mascara streaming down her face, ending in dried tears the color of black licorice.

Nevermind. Nevermind it. I stare at the top of Spencer's head, waiting for her to look at me. I think that if I stare at her hard enough and with enough intent, she will feel my eyes burning holes into her head and she'll have to look at me. She will know that I am watching her and she will not be able to resist looking at me. I do this for a solid two minutes before laughing at myself. _You know you can just talk to her. _

Yes, yes I _can, _but that sucks all the fun right out of it. When your best friend is too absorbed in pulling splinters from your heels to notice your gaze searing into the top of their head, you have to make your own entertainment. I twitch my toe when she grabs hold of it and angles the tweezers to pluck. She doesn't realize the movement was voluntary, and grasps it more firmly, re-angling the tweezers. I stifle a chuckle and twitch it again. She furrows her brow and tries again.

I can't resist busting out laughing, and she vainly attempts to look angry.

"You're never going to get all of those out." I state matter-of-factly.

"You know, my mother said the exact same thing to my dad eighteen years ago when their condom broke. He dragged her into the shower and started spraying her with the detachable shower head, trying to rinse all the little spermies out. They _really _didn't want another kid." She says all of this to my foot as she works on it, a comedic monotone to her voice.

"Good lord." I laugh.

"Talk about a buzz-kill." She grins, still not meeting my eye.

"One good thing did come from that Mother of All Cockblockers, though."

"If we're even loosely adhering to the dictionary definition of 'good', I'd have to argue with you." She murmurs, still smiling softly.

"You'd lose that argument. I mean, it's fundamentally absurd, and incorrect in every respect, but since you're Spencer Hastings, you'd still have a good chance of winning the actual argument."

"Damn straight."

"Are you done yet?"

"I actually think I am." She says, after a minute, extracting one final wood shred, and I can feel the feeling creeping back into my feet.

"Where were we?" I ask, grinning with one side of my mouth like I always do when I'm trying to look sexy but failing miserably. She laughs at me, not like a mean laugh, but warm and appreciative.

I can feel the corners of my mouth curling up into a smile, even when I make an effort to stop them. Pinned between Spencer and her living room wall, with aching feet and fingers, there's no place I'd rather be. I try to chase the feeling out of my head, because as a general rule I don't kiss people I really like, but it feels as much a part of me as my own skin.

**A/N: Insert implied sexy time here.**


	10. Chapter 10

**Spencer**

"Dara?" I call down the hallway, my voice shaking slightly. "Dara?" No response. I step cautiously, like any footstep might set off a landmine. "Are you here?"

"Go away!" She shrieks the sound emanating and bouncing off the walls. Her voice is shrill and broken and I can hear a sob threatening to break through. I pick up my pace, speed walking to her door. When I push it open, I find a bloodied razor sitting on the rug, dark and sticky. The bathroom door across the floor is cracked about a foot, and the yellow light is spilling out. I spin around instantaneously and push the door open.

"Spencer, I said GO AWAY!" She screams, her hair a matted mess atop her head, black mascara streaming down her cheeks.

"Dara, what the hell happened in here?" I ask, trying to take in all that I see without collapsing. She's hunched over on top of the closed toilet lid, a spray of blood droplets littering the floor beneath her, some merging together into larger puddles. An empty pipe and a lighter sit on the counter, alongside a plastic bag that's wrinkled enough to have contained something at one point, but is now entirely vacant.

"Spencer, leave." She mumbles, sounding weak and vulnerable along with frightening and angry. "Just go."

I make no movement indicating intent to leave, and she shoves me roughly into the door and screams at me to go again. I reach down and lift her up by her wrists, pulling her into a tight, restraining embrace. I can hear her protests becoming weaker, until she rebuilds her will and jabs me in the ribs with her elbow and shouts once again for me to get off. She folds against the back wall, arms crossed over her chest and cuts on her hips oozing down her thighs.

"Just get out." She can hardly choke the words out, and she coughs and sputters whenever she tries to speak strongly or with meaning. There are red stripes on my jeans from holding her to my body, and my hands are dark and my fingers are sticking together. I stand in the doorway in a state of shock.

"GET. OUT!" Her voice is so loud it echoes off of my eardrums. She bangs her fists against the wall behind her, and kicks at me with her feet.

"No!" Raw, unfiltered horror laces my voice. Her eyes are tomato red with a spray of bulging veins that look like a wad of spaghetti thrown at a wall. She can't look me in the eye, or look at anything for more than a few seconds. Her eyes dart around the room like a trapped fly, and her fingers have begun to involuntarily tap against the wall. She slides down the wall and onto the floor, every breath a struggle. She pulls a razor from behind the toilet and yanks it across her thigh. I grab her hand and jerk it sharply to the side, and the razor flies into the bathtub.

"Dara, you need to go to the hospital." I slide down the wall as she had, and can hear the erratic thumping of her heart; see it pulsating through her shirt. Her wounds are gushing blood and I don't know if I can fix this.

"Just get the fuck out of here, Spencer. God dammit! Get out of here!" She screams, dragging out the _here _with a blood-curdling scream that could have landed her a role in a horror film. She pulls a bottle of shampoo from the edge of the bathtub and throws it at me, as hard as she can. The crazed look in her eyes redirects to the empty baggie. She stares at it for a solid ten seconds before resuming her screaming. I crawl across the floor, leaving bloody handprints on the tile as I do. It looks like someone was murdered in here. I lift her up with my own weight as I resume standing, holding her between the wall and my superior size. She pushes and shoves and I _shh _her, again and again and again, she pushes and kicks and pushes and kicks and then surrenders and sinks into my shoulder, coughing and sputtering. It doesn't take long until we're back on the floor, and I'm reclined between the side of the toilet and the wall and she's sitting between my legs, facing away from me and sprawled out across the bloodied floor, breaths coming in sharp gasps. I'm pushing her hair from her eyes with the palm of my hand, repeating the motion until I can feel her begin to relax. I just have to get her to calm down and I can take her to get the medical treatment she needs.

She's concentrating fully on steadying her breathing, tears spilling onto my hands, which have resigned to cupping her cheeks, holding her head upright.

"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay." I say it again and again, until the words lose meaning and I almost forget why I'm saying them. I'm petrified of her current state, but my bines refuse to move when I tell them she has to go to the hospital.

"Dara?" I murmur. No response. I move my hands from her face, and her head dips heavily to the left. "Dara?" I repeat. Again, no response. Shit. She's out. She's mostly naked, so I wrap her loosely in a towel when I slide from beneath her. My hands are convulsing violently, and I nearly throw out my back trying to lift her straight from the ground, even if she's thin as a rail nowadays. My brain switches into rescue mode, and the rush of emotions I had felt earlier exited my brain swiftly. I throw her over my shoulder, disturbed by how light she is and how sharp her hip hones are against my collarbones.

Carrying her down the stairs still proves difficult, she's still only fifty pounds or so lighter than I am in her deteriorated state. When I exit the front door, I realize how bad this must look. Probably like I murdered her. I hurriedly dump her into the backseat and back the car out of the driveway.

In a blessed rush of adrenaline, the drive passes in a blur. The rest came in snapshots.

Banging on the front door at the emergency room and nurses calling me _ma'am_ and telling me to calm down. The car still running in the background, three doors out of four wide open and the key still in the ignition.

A team of doctors pulling her from the backseat and onto a gurney and wheeling her in and away from me and being held back forcefully when I try to follow them.

A man who talks very slowly and tactfully asking me what happened. I remember telling him, but I don't remember what I said. I don't know how far back I began the story.

Sitting in a cushioned waiting room chair, counting the ticks of the second hand on the clock for a seemingly interminable amount of time.

Being told she'd have to stay overnight and wouldn't be allowed visitors and that I should just go home.

Home. What a funny word for them to use, as if it exists without her. It indicates safety and a sense of belonging, and I know that I belong at her bedside, holding her bony hand and counting the beeps of the machines around me. I don't want her to wake up before I get there, and I fall asleep in one of the chairs, thirty exact copies lining the perimeter of the walls and forming rows, that people cycle in and out of. Kids with broken arms and old men coughing blood onto their t shirts. Women in labor shrieking in pain and men with red hands clutching red-stained cloths talking about their power-tools.

And me, half asleep and half awake, leaning against the black plastic armrest of this chair.

I'd be hard to say how long I sat there.

A doctor dressed in all white finally came out and asked if my name was Spencer Hastings and told me Dara Chamberlain in 303 wanted to see me. I flew out of my chair and followed him back in a hurry and through the busy hallways with the nurses in their scrubs carrying files and stethoscopes while they speed walked to the various rooms, fazed by nothing. I saw that Dara's room was eight doors from the nurses' station, which meant she wasn't in too poor condition. I knew enough about hospitals to conjure that they always kept the sickest patients the closest so if anything went wrong, they could reach them faster. We round the corner and into the room which is dull and dark and there are tears streaming down her face and she looks so small when she tells me that she almost lost the baby, it was so, so close and she's shaking so hard that the mattress is bouncing and I have to weave my arms through tubes to hold her. She whispers the same words over and over again, "My fault."

Her throat throbs on my shoulder and more tears fall onto my filthy shirt, still caked with blood and snot and tears. I fall back into the chair conveniently placed behind me. Maybe they put it there because so many people leaning over their loved ones eventually lost their balance, or will to remain standing, and fell on their asses. Might as well give them a chair to collapse into. How thoughtful of them. A silence ensues, interrupted by my growling stomach a few moments later.

"Go get some food," Dara says.

"I'm not hungry." I say.

"Yes, you are."

"You're right." I say, even though I don't want food. I just don't want her wasting energy arguing with me. I leave my bag on the chair, turning to leave and head toward the cafeteria. When I glance back, she's gone back to sleep.

I reach the elevator and my nose fills with the unmistakable elevator smell. I hit the button labeled 'L' with my knuckle and lean against the wall, one foot up against the wall.

I'm always surprised when the elevator stops before I reach my final destination. Sometimes I exit, and the doors close before I realize I'm on floor eight when I'm headed for thirteen, and I feel like an idiot. I guess that's pretty self-righteous of me, assuming that elevators exist solely to convenience myself alone as soon as I set foot in them. This time, a mother with a jiggly muffin top that strains against her tank top pushes a bulky stroller over the bump on the floor. A preschooler is latched to her wrist, and the baby in the stroller is shrieking so hard it looks physically painful. Two more kids follow her in, one pushing all of the buttons at once and another making a beeline for the furthest corner. I tap the cancel button once they're good and distracted.

Thankfully, we're all headed to the lobby, and it doesn't stop again. I have to wait for them to exit, which takes much longer than it should. Thoroughly irritated, I stalk out and scan for a sign directing me to the cafeteria.

It smells like salty fish and soggy French fries. Individual booths line the perimeter, and without care to the kind of food it offers, head straight for the one with the shortest line. One woman, who's either in her late teens or early twenties. This booth displays for a gray-ish fish casserole with bread crumbs on the top, not a single scoop missing. The lady selling looks lonely, like she's been standing here since her thirties trying to sell the same damn fish casserole every damn day and nobody ever wants any of it.

I can see the face the woman in front of me makes reflected off the glass when she thinks the lady can't see her. Involuntarily, I can tell. She smiles and takes the plate from her, and says 'keep the change' when she hands her a five.

I've never met her before, but she waits for me to buy my food instead of leaving. Once my hands are full, she extends hers and says, "Hi, I'm Macy."

"Spencer," I say, trying not to look at her strangely.

"I'm sorry if this seems strange. It occurred to me that anyone possessing enough empathy to part with four dollars only to be handed a plate of shark vomit by a lonely old lady is definitely someone I wish to acquaint myself with."

She talks like I do, and I don't have the heart to tell her I just didn't want to wait for better food.

"So, where are you headed?" I think that this is an odd question. I get the feeling that this woman asks a lot of odd questions.

"Third floor. 303." I say.

"Dara Chamberlain," She states, and this time I can't help but give her a strange look. "I walked past earlier. I remember just about everything," she taps her temple, "Photographic memory."

I tell her that's nice and ask her where she's going. She's on the third floor as well, but she doesn't give a door number, or tell me who she's seeing. She follows me to Dara's bedside, as if she really doesn't have anywhere else to be. She takes the remote from the nightstand and starts channel surfing, waiting for me to finish intently watching Dara. I don't know if I have the energy to resent her imposition. The smell of hospital food quickly fills the room, and the more bites I take, the worse it tastes.

About half an hour later, Dara wakes up and a nurse sticks her head in the door and launches into some tirade about how well Dara's doing, all the while looking at her like she's going to start violently convulsing at any moment. I guess hospital nurses aren't renowned for their sincerity, but I forget how much she's annoying me as soon as _discharge _and _tomorrow _ come out within the same sentence.

I can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Part of me was almost relieved when I finally trusted her to the hands of a hospital staff, like she'd be safe and guarded in a way I could never provide her with. I pictured her in a church basement in a circle of folding chairs, talking about the nature of her addiction and how much she wants to change her life. I pictured a lengthy, laborious recovery, but a recovery all the same. I let myself think it was getting better.

I'm texting her parents with one hand, the other rested on her wrist. Macy has slithered out, and I'm ready to settle in to the reclining armchair in the corner for the night when Hanna and Emily appear and occupy themselves and the emptiness I've grown too tired to fill. They hold her hands and make jokes of things to lighten the mood. Hanna kisses her forehead when they leave, with a condescending look on her face, like a mother to her child when the mother's friends are over. By this time I'm slumped over in the chair, noncommittally scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed. Macy's back, looking astoundingly at home.

I look at her, and I actually see her for the first time. Her hair is razor straight, but it looks too shiny to be straightened artificially. It's the color of orange that results when you try to dye your hair blond by yourself without bleaching it first, but her roots are mousy brown. She's wearing too much eye makeup, and it looks like it's been there for at least a few days. She's curvy, not curvy like a movie star but curvy like a mother and is wearing a cutoff tee shirt that hangs off one shoulder and a pair of torturous-looking skinny jeans. Her eyes are a pale green, which is contrasted heavily by the red of her bloodshot eyes. I can smell tobacco smoke on her, but not strongly. She's not pretty. Far from it, really. But something about her is bigger than pretty, greater and better. Her mouth is always rested in about an eighth of a smile, like the whole world is some inside joke only she can understand.

"Don't you have someplace to be?" I inquire, trying not to sound hostile.

"Uh…" She glances at her watch, then back at me, "No. Do you want me to leave?"

"Really, I don't care. I'm just tired, and I was going to go to sleep," I rest my hand on Dara's shoulder, "We're leaving tomorrow, and I need to be rested. You can do whatever you like, as long as you don't wake me up." I say, still not sure if I sound uninviting or unappreciative of her company.

She agrees, and nestles her head on top of the back of the chair, and closes her eyes. Okay. I guess she's staying. I crawl into the chair, already in its reclined position.

"Goodnight, Spencer," Dara murmurs.

"Goodnight," I return, a little surprised by her sudden involvement in the situation. I thought she was asleep. Even more surprisingly, it only takes me a few minutes to fall asleep, despite my awkward positioning in the chair and the company around me.


	11. Chapter 11

Spencer

When I wake up, the room feels ten degrees warmer than it had been last night. This is a welcome change, and I burrow deeper into the cushions of the chair I'm curled up in. With Dara sleeping soundly in the bed, and Macy sprawled out on the only other chair in the room, it looks more like a sleepover than an overnight hospital stay. At least if you don't look at the machines hooked up to the bed.

The nurse that bustles in gives Macy a strange, steady look before redirecting her attention to the actual patient. Dara wakes up after a few nudges from my end of the equation, eyelids clinging together stubbornly.

"I don't think I've slept that well in four months. Which is surprising, considering all the noise in here," She says.

"We'll have to get you hospitalized more often. You look great," I agree, and the nurse hands her a clipboard full of release papers, looking frustrated at being held up by our idle chitchat.

She mentions her parents while she scribbles her signature onto the paper. "They came in really late last night, just to make sure I wasn't dying. It was nice seeing them, they've been out of town for so long. They only stuck around for about ten minutes, and dad mumbled something about a flight they were going to miss, and they ducked out without another word."

"They flew in just to see you?" I ask, trying to conceal my shock.

"No, they'd been in for a few days to deal with some business. They got here as soon as they could." She replies. I wonder if the dead of night was really the only time they could get to her, or if they didn't want to be caught driving to and from the hospital by their clients. I decide not to mention this to her.

She hands the clipboard back to the nurse and she leaves in an entitled hurry, after saying, "The doctor will be just a minute,"

"I'm getting really fucking sick of all these nurses." She shakes her head, scoffing quietly.

"You're getting out today, you won't have to deal with them anymore." I pat her hand.

A knock comes on the doorframe, and a head peeps into the open door. Dara meets his eye and scrambles to sit up straight. The room suddenly feels much smaller, and she's tugging on the IV attached to the back of her hand, never taking her eyes off the man in the doorway. It takes me a minute before the face rings a bell in my mind.

Trey. It's Trey standing in the doorway of her hospital room, gnawing on his bottom lip and smirking slightly.

"Nice to see you, babe," He says, and Dara clamps down on my wrist to keep me still.

"Don't call me that. What are you doing here?" She says, her voice formal and business-like.

"Hanna said you were in here." He replies nonchalantly, shrugging and sauntering over to the bedside. "I came to see you."

"I don't think that's approp—" She starts, but he cuts her off.

"You know I've missed you, right? You should come around some time, and we can pick up where we left off." He reaches out to put a meaty hand on her shoulder and she strengthens her death grip on my wrist, partly to hold me back and partly for comfort. She can't peel her gaze from his, but I know it isn't him she's trying to communicate with. I try pulling my arm from her grasp without calling his attention, but she digs her long, sharp nails into my skin.

"Trey, you need to leave," She says, still sounding like a lawyer. I don't know how she keeps the nervous tremors from her voice, because I can feel them in her hand.

"No, I don't think so," He says, his voice mimicking concern.

I yank my arm away, jerking into a standing position, and as her embedded nails rip out of my skin, I feel drops of blood pooling on my skin. "Trey, I don't know where you find the nerve to show up here. You have no right to intrude on her life, after she very clearly told you she wanted you out of it. If I were you, I'd leave now while it's still your choice, because I'm not opposed to pressing the emergency button on the wall and getting you repugnant ass hauled out of here. Whatever part of you told you this was a good idea, you should probably stop listening to it."

"I don't think this is any of your fucking business. This involves me," He points to himself, as if I need the extra help keeping up, then to Dara, "And her."

Dara glances at me and a look of raw terror crosses her face, before she masks it and meets Trey's eye again. He smiles at her, but it doesn't reach his eyes.

Before I know what I'm doing, I'm on the other side of the bed, ripping him away from her and shoving him as hard as I can toward the nearest wall. My voice comes out as a composed whisper, "Get the fuck away from her, you fucking asshole, or I swear I will kick you so hard your balls will retreat into your abdomen and have to be surgically extracted. Get the fuck out and never come back." He's only a few inches taller than my 5'7, but he's at least 100 pounds heavier. He grins wildly, and moves his hands from his sides.

I think I'm supposed to be scared, but all I feel is white hot rage. I swing my arm back, fist colliding with his face.

Dara's been unnaturally silent, but her voice flies up an octave higher than I thought possible when she shrieks, "Spencer!"

Trey slams me to the floor and stalks out of the room, nose dripping blood, kicking the wall on his way out.

"What the fuck was that?" She demands, terrified. My arm has smeared blood on the linoleum floor, which seems improbably cold against my flustered body.

"If I did it a thousand more times, it still wouldn't be was he deserved." I say, my voice losing its aggression. I sound steady.

"Are you okay?" She asks. I can't feel pain because of the adrenaline still coursing through my veins, but I'm sure that'll stop. Regardless, I can't be that badly hurt.

"Yeah." I respond, pulling myself off the floor. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You shouldn't have done that." I think she's going to tell me that she could have handled it, or that it wasn't my place to hit him, but all she says is, "You could have gotten really hurt."

"You mean like you were? I saw what the bastard did to you." I say, the name-calling feeling like a formality. I'm not angry anymore.

"Spencer, what's done is done." She shakes her head, like she's trying to convince herself as much as me.

"Okay," I say, nodding. "Okay. If you're sure. Let's get you out of here."

She relaxes back into the bed, tense shoulders drooping. The doctor comes a few minutes later, plucking tubes from her skin and reapplying bandages. I stop listening intently when I realize he's talking a lot without really saying much, but I do pick up little snippets. He's not going to prescribe painkillers (shocker!) but he thinks she could use some antibiotics, and to pick them up as soon as she can.

We're in my car three doctors and one wardrobe swap later, and I'm suddenly self-conscious of the song the stereo is blasting on repeat when she says, "Spencer, we need to talk."

Everything I've ever done wrong comes flooding back into my brain and I try to fight the slight feeling of emotional paralysis. She gives me a look telling me to calm down and I see remorse in the way her eyebrows crease into a frown, and her fingers trace the thread on her seatbelt.

"I'm going back up to Vermont."

"You… What? Why?" I stutter, my eyes feverishly dancing between hers and the road.

"Spencer, to be with Tracy. He needs me." She says.

"But you said—" My mind escapes to the night at Noel's party, when she told me she was in love with me.

"Spencer, I was wrong for what I said."

My voice lowers to a whisper, "Did you mean it?" I fear she hasn't heard me when she delays her response.

"Spencer, that's not what matters."

"Stop saying my damn name at the start of every sentence. I don't need your condescension." I whip around to face her, my injured forearm resting on the console. The cold air outside draws a fog to the windshield in my peripheral vision, and I feel the hot air from the vents blasting onto my face and making my eyes water.

"Spencer, watch the road." She says, like she wants to keep arguing but she can't think of anything else relevant to say.

I wheel the car to the side of the road and yank the parking brake. "There. Now you have my full, undivided attention. Explain yourself."

"Tracy's the father of my baby, and he's going to be around to act like it."

"Wait, how'd you figure out it was him?" I interrupt.

"Well, while I was in the hospital, they told me how far along I am."

"When? Why didn't they tell me?"

"Because, Spencer, it's none of your fucking business." She states. I scratch at the nail marks she gave me. I didn't mind them before, but now I want them as far away as they'll go. "It's not your kid, not your almost-miscarriage, not your responsibility. This is between Tracy and me."

"What made you change your mind?" I demand, trying to keep my voice together.

"Spencer, I never made up my mind to begin with." She says, sounding much softer and more vulnerable. "Spencer, I'm going to get out of this car and walk home. I'm going to get in Tracy's car and drive up to Vermont. You're going to be sad and you're going to miss me, but you're going to get over it someday. And I want that someday to as soon as possible for you. Which is why I can't stick around any longer." At this, she reaches into the backseat and pulls her duffel bag from the floor and slings her purse over her shoulder and unlocks the door.

I think I expect some kind of goodbye, but she doesn't give me as much as a last look. The snow flurries floating down from the light gray sky land in her hair, and her skin looks paler than usual in the cool light. She looks regal somehow as she paces away, trying not to lose her balance in the heels she's wearing and ruin her exit scene. I want to call after her, but I don't know what I would say. I would try to stop her if I thought my odds of succeeding were greater than just a shot in the dark.

She sticks up her thumb and I'm not sure what she's doing until an old Honda accord pulls to the side of the road and a passenger door swings open. I switch the car into drive and slam onto the accelerator. My eyes still on the road, I fumble with the driver's side controls until the window on the passenger side rolls down.

"Dara!" I scream, but she doesn't look at me. It's like the sound got caught somewhere between us, somewhere in the snowstorm, swept down the street into the little snow dunes collecting in the medians. I don't care if she's mad at me. I don't care if I have to drive her all the way to Vermont in silence while she stares at her decrepit reflection in the window. I just don't want her to get in that car.

"Dara! Get the fuck over here!" I repeat, but the car door slams shut and the tires screech and the only things remaining are the footprints she left in the virgin snow.

I feel like I should slam my fists into the steering wheel or kick something or jump out of the car when it's going 70 down the highway. But I don't. I hold my hands in front of my face, and I stare at the lines and the creases. I think about Dara's fingers between mine and her laugh ringing in my ears. I lace them together, then I pull them apart. I bury my face in them, and I lift it up.

Then I sit up, and I drive myself home. I don't know where she's going, and I don't know where to find her. I know rationally that it isn't my fault, but I feel like I've failed her. I saw the way her legs shook, even before the cold had a chance to penetrate them. I saw the way her hair was pulled up into a tight bun so people wouldn't notice it was falling out in little chunks. Her fingernails were yellow and chipped, and scabs littered her fingertips. She had wrinkles threatening to surface on her face, and dark purple bags beneath her eyes, smeared with black eyeliner to imply intention.

I don't know how much of this is my responsibility, but I feel like I should have stopped her. Like I could have. What if I had called the police? Could they have taken her to a recovery center? I heard that only 10% of patients stay sober for a year after they leave, though. I can't decide whether I think she'd be in that 10%.


	12. Chapter 12

**Spencer**

"Aria?" I call down the hallway, my voice shaking slightly. "Aria?" No response. I step cautiously, like any footstep might set off a landmine. "Are you here?"

"Go away!" She shrieks the sound emanating and bouncing off the walls. Her voice is shrill and broken and I can hear a sob threatening to break through. I pick up my pace, speed walking to her door. When I push it open, I find a bloodied razor sitting on the rug, dark and sticky. The bathroom door across the floor is cracked about a foot, and the yellow light is spilling out. I spin around instantaneously and push the door open.

"Spencer, I said GO AWAY!" She screams, her hair a matted mess atop her head, black mascara streaming down her cheeks.

"Aria, what the hell happened in here?" I ask, trying to take in all that I see without collapsing. She's hunched over on top of the closed toilet lid, a spray of blood droplets littering the floor beneath her, some merging together into larger puddles. An empty pipe and a lighter sit on the counter, alongside a plastic bag that's wrinkled enough to have contained something at one point, but is now entirely vacant.

"Spencer, leave." She mumbles, sounding weak and vulnerable along with frightening and angry. "Just go."

I make no movement indicating intent to leave, and she shoves me roughly into the door and screams at me to go again. I reach down and lift her up by her wrists, pulling her into a tight, restraining embrace. I can hear her protests becoming weaker, until she rebuilds her will and jabs me in the ribs with her elbow and shouts once again for me to get off. She folds against the back wall, arms crossed over her chest and cuts on her hips oozing down her thighs.

"Just get out." She can hardly choke the words out, and she coughs and sputters whenever she tries to speak strongly or with meaning. There are red stripes on my jeans from holding her to my body, and my hands are dark and my fingers are sticking together. I stand in the doorway in a state of shock.

"GET. OUT!" Her voice is so loud it echoes off of my eardrums. She bangs her fists against the wall behind her, and kicks at me with her feet.

"No!" Raw, unfiltered horror laces my voice. Her eyes are tomato red with a spray of bulging veins that look like a wad of spaghetti thrown at a wall. She can't look me in the eye, or look at anything for more than a few seconds. Her eyes dart around the room like a trapped fly, and her fingers have begun to involuntarily tap against the wall. She slides down the wall and onto the floor, every breath a struggle. She pulls a razor from behind the toilet and yanks it across her thigh. I grab her hand and jerk it sharply to the side, and the razor flies into the bathtub.

"Aria, you need to go to the hospital." I slide down the wall as she had, and can hear the erratic thumping of her heart; see it pulsating through her shirt. Her wounds are gushing blood and I don't know if I can fix this.

"Just get the fuck out of here, Spencer. God dammit! Get out of here!" She screams, dragging out the _here _with a blood-curdling scream that could have landed her a role in a horror film. She pulls a bottle of shampoo from the edge of the bathtub and throws it at me, as hard as she can. The crazed look in her eyes redirects to the empty baggie. She stares at it for a solid ten seconds before resuming her screaming. I crawl across the floor, leaving bloody handprints on the tile as I do. It looks like someone was murdered in here. I lift her up with my own weight as I resume standing, holding her between the wall and my superior size. She pushes and shoves and I _shh _her, again and again and again, she pushes and kicks and pushes and kicks and then surrenders and sinks into my shoulder, coughing and sputtering. It doesn't take long until we're back on the floor, and I'm reclined between the side of the toilet and the wall and she's sitting between my legs, facing away from me and sprawled out across the bloodied floor, breaths coming in sharp gasps. I'm pushing her hair from her eyes with the palm of my hand, repeating the motion until I can feel her begin to relax. I just have to get her to calm down and I can take her to get the medical treatment she needs.

She's concentrating fully on steadying her breathing, tears spilling onto my hands, which have resigned to cupping her cheeks, holding her head upright.

"It's okay, it's okay, it's okay." I say it again and again, until the words lose meaning and I almost forget why I'm saying them. I'm petrified of her current state, but my bines refuse to move when I tell them she has to go to the hospital.

"Aria?" I murmur. No response. I move my hands from her face, and her head dips heavily to the left. "Aria?" I repeat. Again, no response. Shit. She's out. She's mostly naked, so I wrap her loosely in a towel when I slide from beneath her. My hands are convulsing violently, and I nearly throw out my back trying to lift her straight from the ground, even if she's thin as a rail nowadays. My brain switches into rescue mode, and the rush of emotions I had felt earlier exited my brain swiftly. I throw her over my shoulder, disturbed by how light she is and how sharp her hip hones are against my collarbones.

Carrying her down the stairs still proves difficult, she's still only fifty pounds or so lighter than I am in her deteriorated state. When I exit the front door, I realize how bad this must look. Probably like I murdered her. I hurriedly dump her into the backseat and back the car out of the driveway.

In a blessed rush of adrenaline, the drive passes in a blur. The rest came in snapshots.

Banging on the front door at the emergency room and nurses calling me _ma'am_ and telling me to calm down. The car still running in the background, three doors out of four wide open and the key still in the ignition.

A team of doctors pulling her from the backseat and onto a gurney and wheeling her in and away from me and being held back forcefully when I try to follow them.

A man who talks very slowly and tactfully asking me what happened. I remember telling him, but I don't remember what I said. I don't know how far back I began the story.

Sitting in a cushioned waiting room chair, counting the ticks of the second hand on the clock for a seemingly interminable amount of time.

Being told she'd have to stay overnight and wouldn't be allowed visitors and that I should just go home.

Home. What a funny word for them to use, as if it exists without her. It indicates safety and a sense of belonging, and I know that I belong at her bedside, holding her bony hand and counting the beeps of the machines around me. I don't want her to wake up before I get there, and I fall asleep in one of the chairs, thirty exact copies lining the perimeter of the walls and forming rows, that people cycle in and out of. Kids with broken arms and old men coughing blood onto their t shirts. Women in labor shrieking in pain and men with red hands clutching red-stained cloths talking about their power-tools.

And me, half asleep and half awake, leaning against the black plastic armrest of this chair.

I'd be hard to say how long I sat there.

A doctor dressed in all white finally came out and asked if my name was Spencer Hastings and told me Aria Montgomery in 303 wanted to see me. I flew out of my chair and followed him back in a hurry and through the busy hallways with the nurses in their scrubs carrying files and stethoscopes while they speed walked to the various rooms, fazed by nothing. I saw that Aria's room was eight doors from the nurses' station, which meant she wasn't in too poor condition. I knew enough about hospitals to conjure that they always kept the sickest patients the closest so if anything went wrong, they could reach them faster. We round the corner and into the room which is dull and dark and there are tears streaming down her face and she looks so small when she tells me that she almost lost the baby, it was so, so close and she's shaking so hard that the mattress is bouncing and I have to weave my arms through tubes to hold her. She whispers the same words over and over again, "My fault."

Her throat throbs on my shoulder and more tears fall onto my filthy shirt, still caked with blood and snot and tears. I fall back into the chair conveniently placed behind me. Maybe they put it there because so many people leaning over their loved ones eventually lost their balance, or will to remain standing, and fell on their asses. Might as well give them a chair to collapse into. How thoughtful of them. A silence ensues, interrupted by my growling stomach a few moments later.

"Go get some food," Aria says.

"I'm not hungry." I say.

"Yes, you are."

"You're right." I say, even though I don't want food. I just don't want her wasting energy arguing with me. I leave my bag on the chair, turning to leave and head toward the cafeteria. When I glance back, she's gone back to sleep.

I reach the elevator and my nose fills with the unmistakable elevator smell. I hit the button labeled 'L' with my knuckle and lean against the wall, one foot up against the wall.

I'm always surprised when the elevator stops before I reach my final destination. Sometimes I exit, and the doors close before I realize I'm on floor eight when I'm headed for thirteen, and I feel like an idiot. I guess that's pretty self-righteous of me, assuming that elevators exist solely to convenience myself alone as soon as I set foot in them. This time, a mother with a jiggly muffin top that strains against her tank top pushes a bulky stroller over the bump on the floor. A preschooler is latched to her wrist, and the baby in the stroller is shrieking so hard it looks physically painful. Two more kids follow her in, one pushing all of the buttons at once and another making a beeline for the furthest corner. I tap the cancel button once they're good and distracted.

Thankfully, we're all headed to the lobby, and it doesn't stop again. I have to wait for them to exit, which takes much longer than it should. Thoroughly irritated, I stalk out and scan for a sign directing me to the cafeteria.

It smells like salty fish and soggy French fries. Individual booths line the perimeter, and without care to the kind of food it offers, head straight for the one with the shortest line. One woman, who's either in her late teens or early twenties. This booth displays for a gray-ish fish casserole with bread crumbs on the top, not a single scoop missing. The lady selling looks lonely, like she's been standing here since her thirties trying to sell the same damn fish casserole every damn day and nobody ever wants any of it.

I can see the face the woman in front of me makes reflected off the glass when she thinks the lady can't see her. Involuntarily, I can tell. She smiles and takes the plate from her, and says 'keep the change' when she hands her a five.

I've never met her before, but she waits for me to buy my food instead of leaving. Once my hands are full, she extends hers and says, "Hi, I'm Macy."

"Spencer," I say, trying not to look at her strangely.

"I'm sorry if this seems strange. It occurred to me that anyone possessing enough empathy to part with four dollars only to be handed a plate of shark vomit by a lonely old lady is definitely someone I wish to acquaint myself with."

She talks like I do, and I don't have the heart to tell her I just didn't want to wait for better food.

"So, where are you headed?" I think that this is an odd question. I get the feeling that this woman asks a lot of odd questions.

"Third floor. 303." I say.

"Aria Montgomery," She states, and this time I can't help but give her a strange look. "I walked past earlier. I remember just about everything," she taps her temple, "Photographic memory."

I tell her that's nice and ask her where she's going. She's on the third floor as well, but she doesn't give a door number, or tell me who she's seeing. She follows me to Aria's bedside, as if she really doesn't have anywhere else to be. She takes the remote from the nightstand and starts channel surfing, waiting for me to finish intently watching Aria. I don't know if I have the energy to resent her imposition. The smell of hospital food quickly fills the room, and the more bites I take, the worse it tastes.

About half an hour later, Aria wakes up and a nurse sticks her head in the door and launches into some tirade about how well Aria's doing, all the while looking at her like she's going to start violently convulsing at any moment. I guess hospital nurses aren't renowned for their sincerity, but I forget how much she's annoying me as soon as _discharge _and _tomorrow _ come out within the same sentence.

I can't tell if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Part of me was almost relieved when I finally trusted her to the hands of a hospital staff, like she'd be safe and guarded in a way I could never provide her with. I pictured her in a church basement in a circle of folding chairs, talking about the nature of her addiction and how much she wants to change her life. I pictured a lengthy, laborious recovery, but a recovery all the same. I let myself think it was getting better.

I'm texting her parents with one hand, the other rested on her wrist. Macy has slithered out, and I'm ready to settle in to the reclining armchair in the corner for the night when Hanna and Emily appear and occupy themselves and the emptiness I've grown too tired to fill. They hold her hands and make jokes of things to lighten the mood. Hanna kisses her forehead when they leave, with a condescending look on her face, like a mother to her child when the mother's friends are over. By this time I'm slumped over in the chair, noncommittally scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed. Macy's back, looking astoundingly at home.

I look at her, and I actually see her for the first time. Her hair is razor straight, but it looks too shiny to be straightened artificially. It's the color of orange that results when you try to dye your hair blond by yourself without bleaching it first, but her roots are mousy brown. She's wearing too much eye makeup, and it looks like it's been there for at least a few days. She's curvy, not curvy like a movie star but curvy like a mother and is wearing a cutoff tee shirt that hangs off one shoulder and a pair of torturous-looking skinny jeans. Her eyes are a pale green, which is contrasted heavily by the red of her bloodshot eyes. I can smell tobacco smoke on her, but not strongly. She's not pretty. Far from it, really. But something about her is bigger than pretty, greater and better. Her mouth is always rested in about an eighth of a smile, like the whole world is some inside joke only she can understand.

"Don't you have someplace to be?" I inquire, trying not to sound hostile.

"Uh…" She glances at her watch, then back at me, "No. Do you want me to leave?"

"Really, I don't care. I'm just tired, and I was going to go to sleep," I rest my hand on Aria's shoulder, "We're leaving tomorrow, and I need to be rested. You can do whatever you like, as long as you don't wake me up." I say, still not sure if I sound uninviting or unappreciative of her company.

She agrees, and nestles her head on top of the back of the chair, and closes her eyes. Okay. I guess she's staying. I crawl into the chair, already in its reclined position.

"Goodnight, Spencer," Aria murmurs.

"Goodnight," I return, a little surprised by her sudden involvement in the situation. I thought she was asleep. Even more surprisingly, it only takes me a few minutes to fall asleep, despite my awkward positioning in the chair and the company around me.


	13. Chapter 13

Spencer

When I wake up, the room feels ten degrees warmer than it had been last night. This is a welcome change, and I burrow deeper into the cushions of the chair I'm curled up in. With Aria sleeping soundly in the bed, and Macy sprawled out on the only other chair in the room, it looks more like a sleepover than an overnight hospital stay. At least if you don't look at the machines hooked up to the bed.

The nurse that bustles in gives Macy a strange, steady look before redirecting her attention to the actual patient. Aria wakes up after a few nudges from my end of the equation, eyelids clinging together stubbornly.

"I don't think I've slept that well in four months. Which is surprising, considering all the noise in here," She says.

"We'll have to get you hospitalized more often. You look great," I agree, and the nurse hands her a clipboard full of release papers, looking frustrated at being held up by our idle chitchat.

She mentions her parents while she scribbles her signature onto the paper. "They came in really late last night, just to make sure I wasn't dying. It was nice seeing them, they've been out of town for so long. They only stuck around for about ten minutes, and dad mumbled something about a flight they were going to miss, and they ducked out without another word."

"They flew in just to see you?" I ask, trying to conceal my shock.

"No, they'd been in for a few days to deal with some business. They got here as soon as they could." She replies. I wonder if the dead of night was really the only time they could get to her, or if they didn't want to be caught driving to and from the hospital by their clients. I decide not to mention this to her.

She hands the clipboard back to the nurse and she leaves in an entitled hurry, after saying, "The doctor will be just a minute,"

"I'm getting really fucking sick of all these nurses." She shakes her head, scoffing quietly.

"You're getting out today, you won't have to deal with them anymore." I pat her hand.

A knock comes on the doorframe, and a head peeps into the open door. Aria meets his eye and scrambles to sit up straight. The room suddenly feels much smaller, and she's tugging on the IV attached to the back of her hand, never taking her eyes off the man in the doorway. It takes me a minute before the face rings a bell in my mind.

Danny. It's Danny standing in the doorway of her hospital room, gnawing on his bottom lip and smirking slightly.

"Nice to see you, babe," He says, and Aria clamps down on my wrist to keep me still.

"Don't call me that. What are you doing here?" She says, her voice formal and business-like.

"Hanna said you were in here." He replies nonchalantly, shrugging and sauntering over to the bedside. "I came to see you."

"I don't think that's approp—" She starts, but he cuts her off.

"You know I've missed you, right? You should come around some time, and we can pick up where we left off." He reaches out to put a meaty hand on her shoulder and she strengthens her death grip on my wrist, partly to hold me back and partly for comfort. She can't peel her gaze from his, but I know it isn't him she's trying to communicate with. I try pulling my arm from her grasp without calling his attention, but she digs her long, sharp nails into my skin.

"Danny, you need to leave," She says, still sounding like a lawyer. I don't know how she keeps the nervous tremors from her voice, because I can feel them in her hand.

"No, I don't think so," He says, his voice mimicking concern.

I yank my arm away, jerking into a standing position, and as her embedded nails rip out of my skin, I feel drops of blood pooling on my skin. "Danny, I don't know where you find the nerve to show up here. You have no right to intrude on her life, after she very clearly told you she wanted you out of it. If I were you, I'd leave now while it's still your choice, because I'm not opposed to pressing the emergency button on the wall and getting you repugnant ass hauled out of here. Whatever part of you told you this was a good idea, you should probably stop listening to it."

"I don't think this is any of your fucking business. This involves me," He points to himself, as if I need the extra help keeping up, then to Aria, "And her."

Aria glances at me and a look of raw terror crosses her face, before she masks it and meets Danny's eye again. He smiles at her, but it doesn't reach his eyes.

Before I know what I'm doing, I'm on the other side of the bed, ripping him away from her and shoving him as hard as I can toward the nearest wall. My voice comes out as a composed whisper, "Get the fuck away from her, you fucking asshole, or I swear I will kick you so hard your balls will retreat into your abdomen and have to be surgically extracted. Get the fuck out and never come back." He's only a few inches taller than my 5'7, but he's at least 100 pounds heavier. He grins wildly, and moves his hands from his sides.

I think I'm supposed to be scared, but all I feel is white hot rage. I swing my arm back, fist colliding with his face.

Aria's been unnaturally silent, but her voice flies up an octave higher than I thought possible when she shrieks, "Spencer!"

Danny slams me to the floor and stalks out of the room, nose dripping blood, kicking the wall on his way out.

"What the fuck was that?" She demands, terrified. My arm has smeared blood on the linoleum floor, which seems improbably cold against my flustered body.

"If I did it a thousand more times, it still wouldn't be was he deserved." I say, my voice losing its aggression. I sound steady.

"Are you okay?" She asks. I can't feel pain because of the adrenaline still coursing through my veins, but I'm sure that'll stop. Regardless, I can't be that badly hurt.

"Yeah." I respond, pulling myself off the floor. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"You shouldn't have done that." I think she's going to tell me that she could have handled it, or that it wasn't my place to hit him, but all she says is, "You could have gotten really hurt."

"You mean like you were? I saw what the bastard did to you." I say, the name-calling feeling like a formality. I'm not angry anymore.

"Spencer, what's done is done." She shakes her head, like she's trying to convince herself as much as me.

"Okay," I say, nodding. "Okay. If you're sure. Let's get you out of here."

She relaxes back into the bed, tense shoulders drooping. The doctor comes a few minutes later, plucking tubes from her skin and reapplying bandages. I stop listening intently when I realize he's talking a lot without really saying much, but I do pick up little snippets. He's not going to prescribe painkillers (shocker!) but he thinks she could use some antibiotics, and to pick them up as soon as she can.

We're in my car three doctors and one wardrobe swap later, and I'm suddenly self-conscious of the song the stereo is blasting on repeat when she says, "Spencer, we need to talk."

Everything I've ever done wrong comes flooding back into my brain and I try to fight the slight feeling of emotional paralysis. She gives me a look telling me to calm down and I see remorse in the way her eyebrows crease into a frown, and her fingers trace the thread on her seatbelt.

"I'm going back up to Vermont."

"You… What? Why?" I stutter, my eyes feverishly dancing between hers and the road.

"Spencer, to be with Tracy. He needs me." She says.

"But you said—" My mind escapes to the night at Noel's party, when she told me she was in love with me.

"Spencer, I was wrong for what I said."

My voice lowers to a whisper, "Did you mean it?" I fear she hasn't heard me when she delays her response.

"Spencer, that's not what matters."

"Stop saying my damn name at the start of every sentence. I don't need your condescension." I whip around to face her, my injured forearm resting on the console. The cold air outside draws a fog to the windshield in my peripheral vision, and I feel the hot air from the vents blasting onto my face and making my eyes water.

"Spencer, watch the road." She says, like she wants to keep arguing but she can't think of anything else relevant to say.

I wheel the car to the side of the road and yank the parking brake. "There. Now you have my full, undivided attention. Explain yourself."

"Tracy's the father of my baby, and he's going to be around to act like it."

"Wait, how'd you figure out it was him?" I interrupt.

"Well, while I was in the hospital, they told me how far along I am."

"When? Why didn't they tell me?"

"Because, Spencer, it's none of your fucking business." She states. I scratch at the nail marks she gave me. I didn't mind them before, but now I want them as far away as they'll go. "It's not your kid, not your almost-miscarriage, not your responsibility. This is between Tracy and me."

"What made you change your mind?" I demand, trying to keep my voice together.

"Spencer, I never made up my mind to begin with." She says, sounding much softer and more vulnerable. "Spencer, I'm going to get out of this car and walk home. I'm going to get in Tracy's car and drive up to Vermont. You're going to be sad and you're going to miss me, but you're going to get over it someday. And I want that someday to as soon as possible for you. Which is why I can't stick around any longer." At this, she reaches into the backseat and pulls her duffel bag from the floor and slings her purse over her shoulder and unlocks the door.

I think I expect some kind of goodbye, but she doesn't give me as much as a last look. The snow flurries floating down from the light gray sky land in her hair, and her skin looks paler than usual in the cool light. She looks regal somehow as she paces away, trying not to lose her balance in the heels she's wearing and ruin her exit scene. I want to call after her, but I don't know what I would say. I would try to stop her if I thought my odds of succeeding were greater than just a shot in the dark.

She sticks up her thumb and I'm not sure what she's doing until an old Honda accord pulls to the side of the road and a passenger door swings open. I switch the car into drive and slam onto the accelerator. My eyes still on the road, I fumble with the driver's side controls until the window on the passenger side rolls down.

"Aria!" I scream, but she doesn't look at me. It's like the sound got caught somewhere between us, somewhere in the snowstorm, swept down the street into the little snow dunes collecting in the medians. I don't care if she's mad at me. I don't care if I have to drive her all the way to Vermont in silence while she stares at her decrepit reflection in the window. I just don't want her to get in that car.

"Aria! Get the fuck over here!" I repeat, but the car door slams shut and the tires screech and the only things remaining are the footprints she left in the virgin snow.

I feel like I should slam my fists into the steering wheel or kick something or jump out of the car when it's going 70 down the highway. But I don't. I hold my hands in front of my face, and I stare at the lines and the creases. I think about Aria's fingers between mine and her laugh ringing in my ears. I lace them together, then I pull them apart. I bury my face in them, and I lift it up.

Then I sit up, and I drive myself home. I don't know where she's going, and I don't know where to find her. I know rationally that it isn't my fault, but I feel like I've failed her. I saw the way her legs shook, even before the cold had a chance to penetrate them. I saw the way her hair was pulled up into a tight bun so people wouldn't notice it was falling out in little chunks. Her fingernails were yellow and chipped, and scabs littered her fingertips. She had wrinkles threatening to surface on her face, and dark purple bags beneath her eyes, smeared with black eyeliner to imply intention.

I don't know how much of this is my responsibility, but I feel like I should have stopped her. Like I could have. What if I had called the police? Could they have taken her to a recovery center? I heard that only 10% of patients stay sober for a year after they leave, though. I can't decide whether I think she'd be in that 10%.


	14. Part II: Chapter 14

I feel a twinge at my heart while I'm taking a practice test for my calculus class. Parts of my brain take their stances and prepare their arguments, launching into careless dialogue regarding what I should be doing and where I should be doing it. Really, they know no more than I do, but they can taste the changes in wind and feel the cold fronts before I can so much as blink. I smother them with a blanket of numbers and equations, but they speak a different language and they are still visible. The dialogue fills my head, dramatic whispers and confessions to god knows who. I guess they know before I do.

I see it towards the end of the 9'o'clock news. Suddenly, every fumbling voice in my head has become perfectly audible and lucid, clear and loud. There's a smoking car wreck, an interviewee by the name of Tracy Radford. Aria walks into the frame, damaged but intact and I feel relief mixed in with a heavy dose of raw terror. Even though I know there was an accident, my brain still takes a wrong turn and shrieks, _did he hit her?_ The bruises look unfortunately familiar, but not man made.

Only three weeks have passed since she disappeared into that snowstorm, and I'm almost surprised she still exists. I have number myself so greatly that my life feels like a video recording now and I'm just watching the tape play back, there's nothing I can do about the things I'm doing because I've already done them. I don't think I could stand the full force of my emotions if I let them loose. I grab my keys, and I tell my mother on my way out that I'm sleeping over at Hanna's, and she doesn't question this, though I almost wish she would.

"Okay. Have fun, sweetie." She continues moving her pen from paper to paper, hovering in the air before scrawling down loopy cursive words. I shove still-warm clothes from the dryer into my bag, borrowing heat and holding it close to my chest. The highway is almost insultingly crowded, where do these people have to be that's as important as where I'm going? The streetlights whirl past me like a spinning color palette, accelerating aggressively and blurring together.

The radio is on commercial for thirty minutes before I emerge far enough out of my own head to hear. Some strange Jesus lady's voice rises and crescendos into a cacophony of anger and fear, morphing together into something that must look like love from her eyes.

I change the channel, just for a change of pace, because I hate all the music they play anyway and the quiet is too cruel. It feels like this is all happening too fast, though I know I could pull to the side of the road and hit pause at any time I want.

My knuckles fade slowly to a shade of white, and I continuously remind myself to loosen my grip on the steering wheel. I know that at some point, I'm going to have to actually find out where precisely it is I'm going. That time, however, is not now, and my speedometer pushes ten over the speed limit.

By the time the luminescent green clock on my dashboard reads 2 am and I'm pulled into a hotel parking lot, I remember very little about the drive. Just the familiar robotics; switching my brain into autopilot. Once I'm walking again and talking to front desk attendants, silencing my thoughts proves more difficult. I toss and turn in the feathery sheets for thirty minutes before caving in and driving to the nearest gas station and picking up a 12-pack of Benadryl. The balding middle aged man on a swivel chair behind the counter looked at me with pity when I pay for it with a fifty dollar bill, dark bags forming slowly under his eyes and mine, perhaps from insomnia and perhaps from recurring assignments to the night shift.

I consider taking the whole thing, but the thought seems almost obscene, considering the reason why I'm even here. Maybe three or four would be good, a little extra to make sure the job gets done. No, just two. It says two on the box, and that's all I'm taking.

I don't fall asleep any faster than I otherwise might've, but I wake up supremely exhausted, as if the drugs have picked the worst possible time to finally kick in. I brew a pot of coffee in the mini drip machine over the mini fridge, then run it back through with a new filter and grounds. Double the caffeine means double the sugar and tasting like over-sweetened coffee all day, so I make a point of brushing my teeth. I shove my minimal inventory back into my before leaving with a complimentary muffin and a second cup of noticeably weaker coffee, giving the car a couple minutes longer than necessary to warm up.

I'm terrified. I'm not going to deny it. Ambiguously jittery fingers clack against the steering wheel, maybe from the caffeine and maybe from the nerves. The mystery of what I might be walking in on is enough to make me seriously consider checking right back into that hotel and sleeping until housekeeping tentatively wanders in and thinks I'm dead.

But that would create more problems than at solves, and I know better than to seek false solutions by now. The highway has cleared out, the morning rush hour passing an hour before I even woke. I can never silence my internal alarm clock, no matter how hard I try or how many sleeping pills I choke down.

With a free hand, I check White Pages for Tracy Radford. One address in Burlington, Vermont. I run through this in my mind. Where has Aria been going all this time? Well, I suppose, it's in Vermont and that's probably going to have to be good enough.

I could have probably persevered through the remainder of the seven hour drive, but the hotels in Albany were assuredly better kept than those in the surrounding small towns, and I wasn't even sure what my destination was and didn't want to wind up in some stranger's driveway at five in the morning looking old and shaken. Plus, some unspoken creed inside of me dictated that I would not be spending the night in whatever town she was. There was no way I would have slept that way, knowing she was within a miles-radius of me, perhaps in some dire state of need, anxiously awaiting my arrival. If she was in such a state, I wanted to at least comfort myself with the knowledge that there was nothing I could do about it. Driving up highway 87, one was bound to encounter some sort of traffic jam on the outskirts of New York City, so I wanted to hit this spot at the most inaccessible hour possible, which was really just halfway past midnight.

I pull into the concrete driveway of a surprisingly nice ranch home, or at least a ranch home that was nice at one point in its existence. The shutters on the window are a faded but pretty sage green, and the dirtied white paneling is curling back at the edges. The grass grows in impromptu patches, suffering many years' worth or negligence. A large oak tree lends a precarious branch to sheltering the gray shingles from the haphazard sun, a more conscientious homeowner would have had it removed years ago.

This may well be a total bust. What happens if a total stranger greets me at the door, polite but unsympathetic? I would be unceremoniously ejected from the town, no longer anything here for me. Sure, I could ask around, but my last claim to pride during this possibly-futile escapade was that I wasn't desperate. No, definitely not that. No begging or meandering or hounding. If this wasn't it, I would turn back and head straight home.

I might be just trying to delay the reality of what's about to happen, but I pull my phone from my bag and check it for the first time in hours. My mom texted, asking when I'll be home. I tell her tomorrow evening, and she doesn't question this, at least not within the next five minutes before I leave my car.

Then, returning to a more comfortable state of automatic action and reaction, I pace to the aged, untreated wood porch, which creaks in protest when I step on it. Next, I ring the plastic doorbell, too still to knock. For a moment, when I hear a combination of approaching footsteps and blood pulsing inside my ears, I beg every possible force in the universe to return that ring to my fingertips.

Tracy stands before me in living, breathing color. "How can I help you?" He says tiredly, like he wants to be friendly, but he can't find it in him.

I fumble around for words, opening and closing my mouth a number of times before settling on, "Aria Montgomery."

His stance immediately tenses, "Who are you?"

"Spencer Hastings." I see his brow furrow, then his eyes lifting back up to mine as he recognizes the name.

"You're the chick…" He starts, pointing a definitive finger, but trails off, deciding it's in his best interest not to finish.

"Probably am. Can I see her?" Not _is she here, _nor _where is she_. I have a feeling this man will blow me if I give him half a chance, probably thinking it's for Aria's sake.

He turns to get her, not bothering inviting me in. Some shuffling occurs in the next room over, both of their muffed voices. Then she emerges, clad in worn jeans and a gray baby tee, hair straightened and gathered in a messy bun atop her head and eyes cold. But the strangest addition to her outfit? She's dead sober.

"Spencer?" I suddenly feel much overdressed, even though I'm only in a pencil skirt and a sweater. "What are you doing here?"

With this, every emotion I've been concealing bubbles to the surface, boiling over like pasta water on a hot stove. I almost shudder noticeably, and only tact keeps me from launching into her arms. Her words sting like jellyfish tentacles, rippling through my body violently.

"Tracy, this is kind of a private thing. Can you go… be somewhere else?" Normally, I'd never kick a grown man out of his own house, but the faux pas of my word doesn't even register with me. Tracy looks appropriately offended, but Aria tells him it's okay, and that she's sorry. He obliges and ducks out the door without another word. As she fills the void with small talk, I try to gauge how well Tracy might be hearing her at this very moment.

As if she was reading my mind, she says, "Don't worry. He can't hear us. These walls were soundproofed back on '08." She doesn't elaborate as to why, but I can tell what she's said is true. "So why are you here?" She rests a hand on her hip, sighing plaintively.

"What happened?"

She sighs. "Spencer…"

"I swear to all things holy, Aria, if you tell me _I won't understand _or _it's complicated_..." I am scanning through my head for a proper threat when she interrupts.

"I'm not going to." The statement comes as a heavy exhale, tired and defeated.

I reiterate, more quietly this time, as her attitude no longer necessitates a hostile tone. "What happened?"

She closes her eyes, unable to look into mine as she ponders what to tell me. I am just starting to get used to the rancid smell of the air and the littering of broken liquor bottles and damp newspapers on the floor when she starts, "I was drinking. Stella was, too," She doesn't bother telling me who Stella is, though I know from the newscasts she's the woman who died in the wreck. "And she wanted to see her brother. She said she _had _to see her brother, and we left. I was less drunk, I told her I should drive. She insisted it should be her, because she was the only one who knew where it was. I swear, Spence, that's all I remember, other than a fast blurring of lights and an airbag slamming into my chest."

Something in the words feels like it's missing. Who would Aria be, though, if she didn't speak so carefully, leaving out snippets of information for the hell of it? If she was drunk, I suppose, the probably doesn't remember too much, or too clearly.

"Are you okay?" I breathe, settling finally on the simple yet nagging question.

She knows she can't say no, so she says yes. "I'm fine, Spencer." She pushes up her sleeves, exposing the minimal damage done to her. "Perfectly fine."

"Your face is scratched." I observe accusingly, unfolding my arms from over my chest to point at the left side of her face. She pulls her hair from its confines and it cascades over her face, obscuring the net of narrow slices.

"It won't scar."

"Good." I counter.

"Anything else?" She asks, like she's just completed her twelfth herculean labor and greatly fears I'm about to present her with a thirteenth.

"Is there?"

"Drive safe, Spence."

"I always do." I grin sardonically, readjusting my bag on my shoulder and turning to leave.

Right as I'm about to pull the front door shut behind me, I call back, "Take care of yourself."

She doesn't answer, though I know she heard me.


	15. Chapter 15

It's been a long seven months of isolation and curling up in a ball on the shower floor every night. I pull my knees to my chest, hugging them like they belong to someone else. I've built something of a brick fortress around my heart in the time she's given me, and it's been fourteen days since I cried. But feeling none of what she's inflicted means feeling none of anything else, closing off.

Toby, I'm sure, will eventually give up on trying to make me happy, but he hasn't yet. My lips are always a straight line when he kisses them goodbye, but he smiles onto them all the same and tells me how much he loves me. I try every day to feel thankful for this.

I've only delved deeper into my academics, filling my mind to the brim with equations and treaties to keep it moving. I make perfect scores on all my tests, earning congratulations and words of encouragement from both my teachers and parents, but the truth is I'd welcome any escape, whether it meant perfect grades or terrible ones.

My mom can't tell the difference, however, so she talks nonstop about what a great school I'm going to get into, even though I already know where I want to go. Not UPenn, like she so enthusiastically promotes, but a small school in Wyoming. Far, far away. And I'm virtually guaranteed admission, so I'll never have to look back. I might even change my name.

I throw the covers off and onto the floor, growing too warm in the evening sun filtering in through the window. I wipe the sweat pooling on my palms on my jeans before wiggling out of them and pacing across the room in my underwear.

Staring back at me from the mirror on my door is a girl with heavy, purple rimmed eyes and coarse, tangled hair yanked into a sloppy topknot. Her legs have softened since she left the field hockey team, losing muscle but not size. Crease marks from her bed sheets cover her left side, and she's still in last night's clothes.

Tired. I'm hopelessly tired, the kind of exhaustion that can't be cured just by sleep. The only way I could sleep another wink right now would be dosing up on some sort of sleep aid, but even the thought seems obscene. Is it bad to just want to shut off all bodily function beyond the bare necessities? Sure, I'll keep breathing and eating, but I don't want to _think._

So, for the first time in a week I get on the computer for me. Not school, not anything. I log into my email account, though I couldn't say why. I hardly use it anymore. The first thing I see when the page loads is new mail from _Radford, Tracy._

Just two words and all my blood turns to mercury. My heart pounds so hard I can feel it in my fingertips. I sit with my finger hovering over the mouse for a minute or so, listening to myself internally debating.

_Just click it, idiot._

So I do. I pass the point of no return with a single twitch of my finger, despite all logic and reason and everything I've worked for in the past 7 months.

_Spencer, _

_I'm sorry if this is inappropriate. I'm writing to you because Aria is asleep and this might be my only chance to let you know what's happening. _

_First of all, Aria had her baby last night. She's perfect, other than the fluid in her lungs and the four-pound birth-weight. I fell in love with her at precisely the same moment she first made Aria smile. She looks at her the way she used to look when she talked about you. That's love. _

_Also, she's been clean since she moved in with me, which will be seven months on Tuesday. The hospital found out about her drugs when she was admitted. She was court-ordered to attend an outpatient rehab program, which was wonderful of the judge. She should have been sent to prison. It's been crazy hard for her. You made her take sobriety seriously. So thank you. I never thought I'd be so glad to see her clean when I was the one who got her started in the first place. That will stay with me for the rest of my life. As it should. _

_Tracy_

And attached is an electronic check for $300.

I never cash it.


	16. Chapter 16

Summer once again, I thought it would never come. I suppose a part of me knew it would, but the earth spent so long shying away from the sun that I was used to the inherent chill that resided in my bones. I dreaded a time when could would come again after a long and cozy summer. I did not think I knew how to readjust. Every time I felt a cool breeze whistling from around the corner, I knew I would feel snowflakes landing on my nose and I would see her walking off and into the whirlwind snowstorm. I would look up and see only gray for as far as I could see. There was no sky. She gave me wings but took away the sky.

She made me feel like there was no up. There was only here and now, and what was happening when I was not around to see. I did not have enough eyes to watch her in all the places she knew how to be at once.

The sun burnt me the first time I stood beneath it that season. All the melanin had drained out of my skin that winter, so it was as white and pale as the snow. I turned pink like a pig, and I cannot say anything for myself other than that I honestly forgot the sun liked to burn people who were not paying attention.

I hated the tan that followed. It made me remember sunscreen, that's for sure. But I still did not tend for her garden like she would have wanted me to. I did not want to think of her while I collected scratches on my arms and legs, while sweat dripped into my eyes. I did not need to feel like she was hurting me anymore than she already had. So the plants sank back into the earth they came from, while the weeds flourished for the entire summer season. I would have hated them had I given them enough thought. Strangling the only parts of her I still had any control over. I suppose it was my fault more than theirs. I should have plucked them from the ground when I first saw them. They were just plants. They should not have tormented me like they did.

But the thoughts still held me down and twisted my arms behind my back. I only kept them at bay when I was too busy to think of anything at all. I just knew that while I tossed and turned in my bed, my sheets getting a tighter and tighter grip around my body, she was out there with Tracy and her daughter.

Her daughter. What a strange and foreign term. She had a baby this November. Something that was once nothing was now hers. Out of something broken and terrible came something new and pure and life changing. She did not need me anymore. _It's okay, I understand, _was what I told myself. _If she was happy, _I told myself, and for once, I knew she was.

I held up my hair and stood in front of the mirror with the dress held beneath my chin, imagining it white. White like the snow flurries. White and pure and new, emerging untouched from a vat of thick black ink. I would do it one of these days.

I knew this was selfish, but looking back I thought that the entire universe must have been in conjunction, fighting its way between us. Each time I reached out to touch her, it sent an errant atom floating around in space to keep my fingers from reaching hers. It pushed us apart with all the loose pieces of itself. This was why I never felt like I had her.

My brain rambled off a thousand what-ifs. What if I never met her? What if I never loved her quite like I did? I could never get it to stop. I was washing my face in the shower one day when I thought to myself, _what if she died?_ I shuddered and banished the thought. The water was as hot as it would go, beating into my skin with pinpricks and turning my back lobster red. _What if Elisabeth died?_ I slammed the shower knob off and wrung water out of my hair as I hurried out of the shower stall. I had to keep moving. I needed to go for a run. I hadn't been running, and I needed to. That would be good for me.

Still dripping water on the floor as I left the bathroom, I yanked on a sweatshirt and a pair of shorts and bustled down the stairs. My family had driven up to Philadelphia, but I still fought back tears until I was out of the house. It had seen too much already. I took off and I ran and ran until the tears stopped coming and I had no idea where I was, which must have been five miles. I was surprised at my ability to run so far after taking such a long break from my athletic life, but I didn't feel like stopping until I actually did. I felt crazy. Like I was trapped inside someone else's body and stuck festering inside with no way out. My feet were sinking into the floor and grafting to the earth.

Then, whenever I thought about her in a romantic way, it felt weird. Dirty. Like using someone else's toothbrush. It works just fine, but you feel really uncomfortable and strange the entire time. So I lost that part of myself, too.

So much take, take, take. I poured everything I had into her and she was still empty. And then neither of us were full. I cannot remember a time when she was not empty and in need of being filled. I thought over and over about what I was going to do when she overdosed and died. I wished I could carry her demons so she wouldn't have to. I remember one day she was sleeping at my house, and I asked her what it was like. I didn't say any more, any less. Just left it at that. She'd been crying on and off and my supply of consolations had been depleted. She wiped her face free of the tears and said to me, "The most expensive drink you'll ever taste is free alcohol."

I always wanted to tell her that her fucking problems were no worse than anyone else's, that there was no recipe for disaster hardwired into her head. Nothing made her this way but her own foolishness. She damned herself, and by extension, she damned me too. She was not broken, but she felt as empty as a black hole with no more stars to swallow. I think she just wallowed in it. I tried to pull her out, but she'd fastened herself down and told me she was stuck. I guess I kept giving to her because I was waiting until I could finally just declare myself bankrupt. But there are parts of me she cannot reach. Like my love for black coffee on a Sunday morning or the way the stars make me dizzy and remind me I'm just looming over the cosmos, secured to the earth only by the tug of its gravity. She will never touch those.

I didn't know what to do. My room grew smaller every waking moment, and my head fostered countess migraines. I was not myself. I kept telling myself not to pity myself, to get off my ass and be the person I knew was still inside of me. But each time I did, I felt some sort of invisible and unconquerable magnetism dragging me back under and I had no concept of time on those days I hid beneath my quilt and let tears roll onto the sheets. I remember the day Hanna and Emily came to visit, let in at the front door by my mother.

"Spencer's in her room." Was all I heard, then footsteps approaching. I hurriedly sat up and yanked my bird's nest hair into a ponytail and pulled a sweater on over the tank top I had on. I was reaching for pants when they came in.

"I brought frozen yogurt." Hanna said, shaking the paper sack. I smiled and left the warmth of the bed. "How've you been?"

"Tired. I was up late studying last night and I had no idea how late it was until the sun came up." I answered.

"I wish I liked studying. My GPA could really use the extra help." Hanna said, settling into my red chair. Emily fought pitiful glances off of her face. I tried not to glare at her. I chose a tear in the carpeting near the door as my focal point as I listened to her ramble. She never mentioned A. For someone so blunt and direct, she sure knew how to ignore the elephant in the room. I should have cleaned before they came over. I should have been keeping my room clean. I knew what they were thinking.

"Are you doing okay?" She asked again, finally deciding to meet my eyes and not just take my attention for granted. Obviously, my first answer was insufficient, so I knew I'd have to step it up a notch.

"Lil. I'm fine. I know you guys think I'm just avoiding you, but I'm retaking the SATs in a week and I need to really step up my game. I almost bombed it last time." With my grades and the precedent scores I was going to surpass, I could have made it into any school I wanted. Hanna knew that. I wasn't as good at lying as I used to be.

"You couldn't bomb that test if you tried." Hanna scoffed. "Even if you slept from now until then and fried your brain with espresso."

"Like it couldn't handle it."

"Fair enough."

"Hey, do you want to go to the park with us tomorrow? You could really use the sun." Emily poked at my pale skin. I swatted her hand away and clasped mine in my lap. _They know you're nervous._

"What are you guys gonna do there?"

"Eat food, talk, and just hang out." Hanna said, shrugging. _You have to get out of this. _

"I…"

"You're acting like a victim. I know you're sad about Aria leaving, but you have to get your ass out of here and do something else other than cram for a test you've already aced." She interrupted, getting off the chair to stand and face me. She grabbed my face in her hand, and I yanked away. "Get it together. This isn't you." There it was. There was the telltale opinion, the kind she had to have about everything.

"Hanna!" Emily reprieved. I shook my head.

"I'm not acting like a victim, but you're acting like a bully." She scoffed and stormed out, but not before yelling, "This isn't you!" Emily followed her, as Emily does, and I fell onto my bed, suddenly feeling as exhausted as I'd told them I was. I woke up twelve hours later to the beeping of my Monday morning alarm and the sight of melted yogurt seeping through the sack and onto my carpet.

After that, I decided I was being ridiculous and I put on nice clothes and invited Rhett to go out shopping with me. He didn't complain as much as he might have, considering he was my boyfriend. He was nice. He offered commentary and only sighed on occasion. But each time I tried to staple a smile onto my face, something inside me ripped it up and threw it on the floor. I really was ruined this time. Even with the beautiful Pennsylvania sunshine floating down on my skin, all I felt was the ruins inside of me. I hated acting like such a _victim,_ Hanna was right. I was a victim. I had no control left over who I was.

I was falling through and no one was watching.


	17. Chapter 17

I assume that I just needed to get out. My family is busy, as always, and Melissa has decided to move out again, though she reassured my mother that it had nothing to do with her. Either way, she was offended. I don't know why. To me it seemed kind of frivolous, but I didn't say this, even as I listened to them bicker as they packed her things up.

"Mom?" I called down the hallway, my purse slung over my shoulder, ready to go.

"Yeah, honey?" She returns from downstairs, and I slide my feet into my shoes and hurry down to see her.

"Mom, I'm going to see Toby." I say, thinking about how much I missed him. I didn't think I wanted to kiss him, but right now I was sure the only thing that could lift me out of this rut was spending time by his side.

"Okay, be back by six if you want to eat." She answers, peering at me over her glasses.

"Got it." I say. I think that I could also benefit from spending some time with my mother, having a good honest talk with her, since I've been shutting her out so much lately. But I know that she's way too busy with her cases and will try to duck out of the conversation as soon as I raise any topic.

The day is nice and gray, with tiny droplets of rain falling steadily like a mist. It feels so nice, I just want to stand there all day. It's about fifty degrees out, and I pull my sweater shut over my chest to keep the warmth in as I slide into my car. I crank up the heat, watching the windshield fog as I sit in the driveway, feeling the heat on my face. It's unseasonably warm February weather, and I couldn't be happier all the snow is melting away.

It just seems like a really nice omen.

When I've adequately warmed up, I back out of the driveway and head towards new house, since he just moved out of his parent's place.

When I reach the major intersection, I steer onto Fort Street, the route to Aria's house. Force of habit, I tell myself, but then I realize I should probably go and see her parents anyway. It makes sense, right? If I were them I'd want the same thing. When the opportunity to turn arises, I don't take it. So much for my good omen.

Their garage is open when I arrive. I sigh heavily before I get out, to make sure it's known that I don't really want to do this. But either way, I hop out of the car and into the cool rain again, leaving behind the heat. The house is all too familiar as I approach it, reminiscent of a past that no longer feels like it belongs to me. Even the way the cobblestone steps feel through my shoes sends my mind reeling back to the barefoot summers I sent here with the girls, back before things went to shit.

**Good luck telling daddy where his daughter went. No backing out now. –A**

Is the text that alerts me from my pocket. Yes, I definitely misinterpreted the rain. I sigh once again and ring the doorbell, the winter breathing cold on my exposed neck as I wait.

It's Ella who answers the door. "Spencer?" She says, more surprised to see me here than in questioning about whether or not it is me.

"Hello." I say, trying to come up with a more adequate greeting, but it's all I have.

"Come in," She steps out of the way, still wearing a quizzical expression on her face.

Byron is cooking dinner in the kitchen, and the aroma that hits me smells so much like something she would have loved that I have to ball my fists in my pockets.

I don't know where to start, but I don't want to beat around the bush, so I just pick a spot and start there. "This is none of my business if you don't want it to be, but are you in contact with Aria?"

She pulls her lips in between her teeth like she thinks it's a trick question. "Not recently, no." She answers, folding her arms across her chest.

"I'm sorry to be blunt, but what do you know about where she is?"

It's now when Byron makes his entrance into the room, like he'd planned it that way. "She's in Florida with her aunt Polly." He says dismissively, stirring the unattended food on the stove.

I sigh involuntarily, catching myself halfway through. "Why?"

"New beginnings. She was unhappy here." He scoops an omelet onto a plate and stabs it with a fork before resting it on the counter. The dim lighting makes reading their faces a challenge. I have no idea how they live with it like this. "She says she's very happy there." He says abruptly, handing a second plate off to Ella. I'm trying my hardest not to take in my surroundings to a full degree, since I see myself as more of a sponge than a flat, solid surface. I don't know how much of her I'll be carrying out of here.

I turn to Ella for confirmation, ready for her to quickly contradict him with only the blink of an eye. She does nothing of the sort. I prepare myself several times to launch into a monologue about their daughter's true whereabouts, but I bite my tongue each time.

"Okay, thanks. I was worried, since I hadn't seen her in a while. Sorry to disturb your meal time." I lie, turning to leave.

"You're more than welcome to stay and eat with us, if you want." Ella offers, but the way Byron tenses up at this indicated that I'm actually not, even if I actually wanted to.

"I appreciate the offer, but I have to get going." I say, turning to leave once more, interrupted once more.

"Spencer?" She asks, her hand landing on my shoulder. "You can come back here any time you want. You're always welcome." Like I'm some homeless kid who needs a bed to crash in.

"Thanks, Ms. Montgomery." Even after all these years, I still don't feel comfortable calling her Ella to her face, no matter how many times she reassures me it's okay to do so. "I'll see you later."

This time I really do leave, and a heavy breath I didn't know I was holding escapes my lungs when I finally make it out the door.

Thank god that's over.

I am hungry, though, and I can't go home yet. Toby's place has lost all of its appeal somehow, with the refreshed images of Aria, so I head to my favorite go-to: a Waffle House a couple of miles outside of town. It's a bit worn down and beat up, but it's cozy and welcoming there, and they know me by first name and usual order.

I zone out as I drive there, which I've grown rather adept at, and arrive at the place quickly. The route is so familiar, and I love watching all the landmarks drive by. Part of why I love this place so much is because no one in my family would ever take me some place like this, so it's nice just because it's my own. It belongs to me.

Pulling into the lot, I make a game of leaping over rain puddles, since I feel so heavy after visiting her house and I need to do something to lighten the mood. Water sneaks into my shoes when I miss, but I don't mind. Taking a seat across the bar, my gaze falls on a framed certificate on the wall-inspected and approved for cleanliness in 2010. I tell the cook I'd like pancakes with whipped cream and lick sausage, and refocus on the sign, using it as a focal point for my rapidly moving train of thought. All of a sudden, I see the reflection off of it shift in a way that it hasn't before. I whip around, and one of the pieces from the blinds is tipped so people outside can see in, and right as I see the piece of movement that caught my attention, they disappear. They were in a black hoodie.

My heart starts to race, and a rush of adrenaline hits me like a ton of bricks. I tell myself it's okay, that I'm in a public place and nothing could happen to me. Not now, at least. I'm handed my food, and I wolf it down aggressively, trying to eat up all the fear I feel coursing through my veins.

"Hey, Hastings, you okay?" The voice nearly scares me senseless. I whip around, knocking my fork onto the floor. It's Doris, a waitress who's known me since I was able to drive here.

"Yeah, no, I'm fine." I shake my head, and force a smile.

She shoots me a wary look, and continues wiping down the table behind her. She definitely thinks I'm crazy now. I don't know what to say to her, so I clear my plate, pay my bill, and walk to my car with the most unaffected gait I can muster.


	18. Chapter 18

I no longer feel like doing any of the things I'd originally planned. As soon as I get into my car, I drove straight home. Every time I move I feel the liquefied food sloshing around in my stomach. I feel like I'm going to throw up.

I pull my phone out at a red light and pull up A's text from earlier. I don't know why I wasn't more careful, I was even warned. But really, I was already terrified to talk to her parents and I think after a certain point your capacity for fear just maxes out. I've definitely been more afraid than I was then, but it was very overwhelming. The radio is full of static, switching between a country song and a talk radio station. I slap the power button, and things fall silent. It's almost more than I can handle, so I crank up the heat, to fill the empty space, at least.

Getting home, I fall backwards onto the couch, sinking into the cushions. I should go up to my room, there's more privacy there, at least. But the couch is such a rare indulgence these days, and my room feels so far away.

"Spencer?" My mother says as she sits down next to me. "Are you okay?"

I shoot up into a straight sitting position. "Oh, I almost fell asleep." I rub my eyes.

"Did you have fun today?" She rubs my shoulder, leaning over to look me in the eye. Her level of attentiveness is making me uncomfortable.

"Yes." I say, with more haste than I'd intended, not because I meant it, but because I'd been meaning to say it ever since I decided not to go to Toby's in the first place. She pats me on the back and stands up in front of me.

"Do you want something to eat?" I nod, though I'm not hungry. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I belong in more of the house than just my room. I don't feel like I need to retreat. I retake my comfortable position and listen to her digging through the fridge as I watch the muted TV. I think about how everything has to be so quiet, silenced just when I'm sure the best thing for me would be a healthy dose of noise. I reach across the coffee table for the remote and crank up the volume. The newswoman yells about a California wildfire.

My mother does not tell me to turn it down. She does not acknowledge it at all, just starts the stove with a couple of clicks from the gas burner and starts smearing butter across it.

I wonder how A is doing tormenting Aria now that she's out of state. Maybe they have little minions who live in every state ready to pounce on us, wherever we are. The feeling of fear that was first instilled into me when this terrorism started has returned, full force. I had had a break from it, albeit an unpleasant one. I guess you can't put anything off forever. I'm just so tired. Not just sick of it, ready for it all to end, but exhausted. It feels like this should be the end of the road.

My mom reaches over the back of the couch to hand me a plate- full of scrambled eggs and bacon and toast. I set it on the coffee table as she walks around to sit next to me, the couch readjusting beneath our combined weight. "Spencer, are you okay?" She asks with such a serious tone I'm afraid to lie to her. "You haven't been like yourself."

I prepare to launch into a full scale cover up, but when I open my mouth, the only things that flop out are 'Uhh' and 'I…'

She doesn't say anything, doesn't push. She just closes the gap between us and takes me in her arms like I'm still five years old and this whole thing, my whole life, is just one big bad dream and she can make it go away. I sob into her shoulder, gasping for air like I've just been pulled out of the sea. She pats my back reassuringly, and I know that she has a better idea of what is happening than I thought she did before, but she still had no idea how deep it runs. I pretend like this isn't the case as I seek comfort from her, she's really the only thing I have left outside of myself. I was always so sure that I could rip myself off of my family like a Band-Aid, but now I can't imagine how I would have spent this night if not for my mother.

I know she has other places to be, even if she wishes she could stay here, so I get myself together and vacate her arms. She kisses me on the head, tells me that we can talk later, and grabs her keys as she leaves in a blur.

I sit back up and eat as much of the food as I can, since I don't think I'll be hungry again in a while. I imagine myself like a desert cactus: I won't eat often, but when I do, I'll soak up as much as I can.

When I finally retreat to my room, I double check that all my windows and doors are locked, before falling into the deepest and longest sleep I can ever remember.

It's half past noon when I finally awake, and my mom has left me a small bowl of almonds and a glass of water that was once filled with ice, but has melted is now just sweating onto my side table. Tucked underneath the bowl is a note: _I'm eating lunch at the grille, if you wake up before noon, give me a call. _

Well, so much for that. I ignored the food beside me and fell back asleep, though I was a lot less tired than I'd been before. The bed feels like a heat box when I wake up again, the blankets threatening to suffocate me if I don't kick them off. The whole house feels like the blankets, and no matter how many time I feel this way and attempt to satiate the need, it always sneaks back up on me. I pace across the room, shooting off energy as I try to steady myself, but I eventually decide to leave, though I don't feel like cooping myself up in my car. It's still raining out, so I snag a raincoat and an umbrella from the shoe closet.

As soon as I get out, I'm pulled into a trance by the steady falling of the rain, watching it cannonball into the tiny rivers forming by the curbs and gush out of the roof drain pipes. It's a cool rain, each falling droplet sending sensations of cold shooting past my skin, deep into my flesh, but I don't feel cold. It is not strong enough to overtake me, I just stand there and feel the steam rise off of my skin as the rain carries the heat away. The burning leaving my body, I claim a full breath of water droplets suspended in thick air. The way the rings shoot out on the surface of the water as it is pierced by the rain, a repercussion of nature as a smaller drop flies into the air, if you watch closely enough to notice.

Leaves are carried downstream like boats, unmanned ships setting sail without names. Leaving the umbrella on the porch and kicking off my shoes, I run across the spongy grass to the curb, collecting dirt and loose green blades. I ready myself, and leap into the stream, water racing up my jeans. The entire sky is gray, a perfect storm cloud gray, save for one small sunny patch on the horizon. I remember asking my grandfather why that was, how that could be, when I was a kid. He pulled me into his lap, and with a voice that shook and smelled of stale tobacco and chest rot, he said, "That's because the devil is beating his wife." I scurried outside to see, but the clouds had overtaken the spot. I thought about it as I stood there in the freezing rain and stared at the spot where the sun had been shining through, trying to imagine what he had just told me. Suddenly, the rain felt a lot colder, and I turned around and went back inside to sit in front of the fireplace.

Now the image doesn't worry me like it used to. I watch the sun gleam off the crest of the storm as the clouds shift, and think of my grandfather. I wonder what else he'd have to say to me now. I pace over to the deepest spot of the stream, a dip in the road at the end of the block. The water rises above my knees, and I wiggle my bare toes around on the pavement, feeling the dirt and debris. Even though I know that most of this water will likely sit stagnant until it eventually evaporates, it feels like the world is getting a bath, or at least this little corner of it.

I'm so zoned out, I wouldn't have noticed the approaching car if it had not shot a spray of water at me before it pulled over and rolled down its window.

"Spencer?" It asks. I think that my brain intentionally denies me the knowledge of who owns the voice, granting me a last chance to run off and pretend like this didn't happen. But I don't. I freeze in place, the cold taking this opportunity to delve all the way into my bones as I face Aria head on.

Well, shit. I thought, honestly, that I was on the right track towards moving on. I even thought I might be getting there, even if the thought of her still messes with my head. I'm moving in the right direction, and being honest with myself. Getting everything out on the table. I thought I was doing well.

But really, it was more like this: you twist your ankle as a kid, and it hurts like a bitch for weeks, but it goes away on its own, so you think you're in the clear. Sometimes, if you step on it funny, it'll act up for a little bit, but it won't throw a fit or anything. Then, you do whatever stupid thing you were doing in the first place when you blew it out, and it kills. You don't know what to say other than that you honestly thought it had gone away on its own. And then you're forced to actually treat it as a real issue, when all along you told yourself it wasn't one.

That's what it's like when I see her staring at me, leaning across the passenger seat to get a better look at me. She steadies her weight with one arm and uses the other to pop the door open. Rain falls into her car for a few seconds as she waits expectantly for me to hop in. Against all my better wisdom, I pull my water heavy pants back up and climb into the car.

Neither of us say a word, but I hadn't realized how cold I was until her car was breathing warm air directly onto my face. The windshield wipers thumped, and we listened to Lady Gaga in relative silence before she hit the gas. I had no idea where we were going, though some strange part of myself begged for anywhere but my house. She had circled the entire neighborhood twice without a word from either of us, before she finally pulled over. I didn't know where we were, I had never been to this part of the neighborhood before.

She ran her fingers through her hair in desperate exasperation, tearing the perfect middle part before turning to look me dead on. "Do you want to fix it?"


	19. Chapter 19

I lean forward in my seat and turn down the blasting heat which is drying my eyes and searing my skin. She's still looking at me, and in the interest in avoiding cowardice, I turn to meet her eyes. They're almost pleading, though and I can't bear to hold her gaze for too long.

"Spencer?" She fights the quiver out of her voice, barely stable.

"No." I spit, all the pain and suffering I had felt over the past few months filling up inside of me and threatening to spill out through my ears. It threatens to overtake me, and my fingers can't seem to hold still. I reach over and fumble with the passenger side lock, trying to escape the car.

She makes this awful strangled, choking sound and unlocks the driver's side controls. I kick the door open and swing my legs outside.

"Spencer, wait." She tests a hand on my arm, which I shrug off immediately, feeling only the ghost of her cold fingers. "I left Tracy."

I stop myself from blurting out the word _what_, pulling my lower lip between my teeth and gnawing on it, out of her sight. My bare toes snag on the carpeting on the floor as I curl them under, trying to focus all of my extra energy elsewhere. The way she looks at me is so predatory I feel a temporary rush of terror.

"He has Elizabeth." At this, I can hear the sobs on her voice and feel the emotion pouring out of her and into the empty space around us.

"Can't you go get her?" I ask, sounding more accusatory than I'd meant to.

She smears the falling tears across her face with the back of her hand. "No. We went to court. They gave him full custody because he tested clean and I didn't. Plus, I'm still in high school, so I didn't stand a chance."

"I thought you were clean." I can't keep the tones of disappointment out of my voice.

"I am. I really am. I had a slip up a few weeks ago, but I was good before then and I'm good now." She aggressively reassures me, sounding like she needs it more than I do.

"How did you even get out of the hospital, anyway?" All of my tact disappears, and I just want her to tell me the truth.

"Court ordered rehab. Inpatient. They cut me a deal, and I took it." She shakes her head at herself.

A silence smothers us like a fire blanket, and I feel like squirming out of it, but she's dead still and I still feel like being less careful than she is would be a giveaway.

"What do you want from me?" I ask, tired of beating around the bush. If she doesn't answer me, I'll leave.

"I want to fix this." She says, and when I frown at her generic answer, she reiterates. "Fix _this._" She gestures between the two of us. "I want things to be like they were."

"Things were a lot of ways." I say, because it is the most honest thing I can manage, and I don't want to lower my defenses just yet.

"I know." She pauses, trying to find just the right words to piece together. "I just want things to be right again." She folds her hands neatly in her lap like a pair of pants, and sits in perfect stillness. I don't know what she means by right, nor do I believe that she does. She has to be winging this. I don't believe that she has any idea what she's doing, or I wouldn't see tears pricking at her eyes, glistening beneath the artificial light of the street post. "Do you want to fix this? And before you say no,"

I cut her off, "I'm not going to say no." I pause, cursing myself. The answer isn't yes. "Not in those words. Convince me. Convince me that you've paid for your sins, since I've sure as hell paid for mine. Show me you mean it." It comes from the deepest, darkest parts of me, where I hide all of my anger like a rainy day fund in the back of my .closet.

She looks at me with such conviction that I'm afraid to break eye contact. "I need you." She whispers, low and guttural. Nothing more, nothing less. She is begging my forgiveness, she says she needs me.

"I don't need you."

"I know."

"This story doesn't end well. It never does."

"I know."

She has pulled me back under, she is winning me with her antics. I know that the appeal, the spell she is casting over me is just an illusion. "Well, then, I should go." And I push the door open once more, or at least reach out to. She locks it from her side. "Let me out."

"No." She grips the wheel like she had a reason to, staring straight ahead.

"I don't want to be here anymore. I don't owe you anything." I rattle the handle, pushing on the door as hard as I can. "Let me out of here. I'm done with you."

"Please, Spencer. You're all I have left. He took my daughter." She looks at me like she thinks this will sway me, scanning my eyes for any hint of give. She was ready to pounce. I bite my tongue when I think about telling her that it's a good thing, that her daughter is probably better off without her anyway. It's not my place to tell her this. "Please." I look at her, and the tears rimming her eyes finally make their escape and her lower lip trembles.

"I don't want this. I want to go home. You can't keep me here." I'm not even thinking about the words as I say them, they just pour out of my mouth like smoke and fill the cab.

"Spencer, just hear me out." She sighs exasperatedly, hands landing on her thighs with a quick slap. "I know I fucked up before. But that wasn't all me, those decisions weren't mine. Not past the first. When I started doing those things, that was my choice. But the things they made me do were out of my jurisdiction. I'm not trying to say what I did wasn't wrong, or that it wasn't my fault, but I do want you to know I would have never done those things." She reaches over and puts her hand on my arm once more, and this time I hold still. "And I'm sorry. I really am."

She looks at me, begging. Every logical part of me is screaming the word no, trying to flash images of the last few months behind my eyes so I'll remember the suffering I went through. But honestly, I don't know if I'd be able to live with myself again if I sent her away now to be alone.

"Okay." I say, leaving the word out on the table for scrutiny, but not adding anything.

"Okay, what?" She finally asks.

"Okay, let's do this." I nod to secure my answer, to reassure myself that this is what I want.

She exhales sharply, and a laugh fills her mouth. "Okay. Let's do this." She repeats, smiling at me. When she leans over to me, I pull back. I am still cautious. As my father always said, trust but verify. She turns the music back on and restarts the engine.

"Where are we going?" I ask.

She laughs. "That's a good question. I don't know. Where do you want to go?"

I shrug. "It doesn't make a difference to me." Like we're just longtime friends trying to figure out where to go for dinner. We actually might be, now that I think about it. She reaches over and rubs my hand again, like she just can't touch me enough, she wants to be close to me after so long being apart. I try not to pull away, it still makes me uncomfortable. Wary.

"Well, I guess I should get a hotel." She states as she turns out of my neighborhood. I'm not sure my involvement is necessary at this point, but I don't say anything, just try to gain comfort in her stuffy car, filling up with the evaporated water off my still soaking wet clothes, which are sticking to my skin like tape.

"Are you hungry?" She asks, and I shake my head.

"Nope, not hungry."

"Okay. Do you want me to go back and drop you off? Or you can stay at the hotel with me, if you want." That's too much. I don't want to do that, just the thought makes me want to curl up in a ball in my own bed.

"I have to be back home tonight," which is a lie, "Maybe we can meet up tomorrow?" which isn't.

She seems slightly disappointed, but nowhere near phased by this as she turns around and heads back to my house.

"Tracy's friend Brenna is such a bitch." She said, trying to lift the conversation off of the floor. "I swear, the girl's catch phrase is, 'Isn't that a nice song?' she just shoves all this shit down your throat and stares at you like a lost puppy until you agree with her. It drives me crazy." She groans for emphasis, waiting for me to agree. I nod, because I have nothing to add.

While she's quiet, not trying to plaster all the massive gaps in this relationship, I'm pulled in by the profile of her face, looking dead ahead at the rain falling around us like sheets. Her shining ethereal beauty is captivating, like she's something that needs to be held with both hands. Like anyone else who tries is bound to drop her. I watch her like she's a time bomb.

"I don't know. I think Tracy just likes her because she's easy. I think they were doing it for a while." She says, like she doesn't care, but she doesn't _not _care.

"Spencer?"

I fiddle with my fingers in my lap to look preoccupied. "Mmhmm?" I know I'm driving her crazy. I'm not doing it intentionally, but each time I try to stop, I feel like I need to retreat back because I'm in unfamiliar territory.

This is where I draw the line in the fucking sand. If she thinks she can just reappear and pretend like nothing ever happened to us, she never fucked everything up all at once, she's wrong. I try not to let my shoulders fold in on themselves like paper origami, stand up straight, though I just feel like a cardboard cutout, like only a stiff wind would take me out like ashes.

"Are you okay?" She asks, her voice desperate.

I sigh. "Yeah. Just take me home-that's where we're going, right?" I peer out my window to survey our surroundings. She looks at me with this damaged look in her eyes, eyes so green it's almost like I'm seeing _her. _No façade, no mask, nothing. Just a pure and earthly hazel. I don't know why, but I can't stop saying these things. I can't stop pushing her down and away, surely she's just trying to make this work.

"Yes. Taking you home." She exhales. "Taking you home." Her voice tremors and she tenses her shoulders as she leans away from me uncomfortably, as though I'm a flickering flame growing too hot for her.

"You can stop that now. I know you're sorry. We don't need to throw you a pity party." I spit out the words like they taste bad.

"Umm, I'm not going to play this game with you. You're pushing me back and all I'm trying to do is fix this."

"Fuck that. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't need to fix it. If we do this, we do it on my terms. I'm not bending over backwards for you anymore."

She opened her mouth to say something, assuredly very snarky, but stops herself and reconsiders. Very slowly and deliberately, she says, "Okay. You're right." Each word is spoken like she's measuring it out with a ruler, weighing it down to the ounce.

"I know that." I reply.

"Okay, okay, okay." She finally pulls onto my street and it occurs to me that she's just been circling around the neighborhood to avoid dropping me off. Asshole.

When I hop out of the car, the rain feels like an annoyance.

This is my advice to you: Avoid anyone who turns your favorite things into nuisances.


	20. Chapter 20

She's late coming to get me, which makes me laugh in spite of myself. I shower and comb my hair, but I don't do anything special to it, even though I want to. My skin still feels tingling and foreign, and I turn the shower water as hot as it will go to try to melt it all off, but it stays.

I've yanked on a pair of jeans and a sweater when she shows up, my signature style still on the hangers in my closet. I look at a pair of tennis shoes in the corner and consider wearing those, but slip my feet into some ballet flats instead as I pour myself a cup of coffee. It just feels like a formality, since I slept very well last night.

When she finally does show and I climb into her passenger seat, she offers to drive to Denny's. I tell her it doesn't make a difference to me and she takes off, looking over at me and smiling every few seconds.

"Are you okay?" I ask, feeling slightly unnerved.

She fiddles with the radio controls. "Yeah, why?"

"You keep looking over at me like you're seeing the face of god or something. Or maybe you're waiting for me to change my mind and jump out of the car sideways."

She laughs, reaching her hand over to touch mine on my lap. Tension shoots up my arm and I hold still, waiting for her to move it. She doesn't. "I don't think that. Neither one."

I'm still not sure. "We really need to talk about this. Honest to god talking." I blurt, and pull back my hand.

"Okay. You first. What do you want to talk about?"

"You said you were in love with me." I state, my voice icy cold.

She suddenly drops her act, no longer smiling and joking and trying to sweep things under the rug. "I know."

"You had sex with me."

"Yeah, I know."

"Well, I'm surprised, since you were so wasted off your ass."

"Which time?"

"Both."

At this she looks as though she can't decide whether to laugh or cry, so she decides to do both, and tears spill out onto her face like her eyes are just leaky faucets, nothing more. "I know that, too."

"Well, what is that supposed to mean? What am I supposed to think?"

"Do you want it to be true?" She won't look me in the eyes. Seeing her this afraid of me scares me myself.

I ready myself to answer her, but stop and turn to her. I want to say yes, to tell her the truth so we can actually be on the same page for once, even if only for five minutes, until we leave the cab of this car and reenter the real world where there are more shades of gray than black and white. I want things to make sense, even if only for a couple of minutes, so I say, "It doesn't matter what I want. Tell me the truth."

"I love you. You're all I have left in this world. I need you. I wish I hadn't done those things, hadn't said that to you, because it was for the wrong reasons. And if you want to kiss me right now, you can. I won't tell anyone. It can be between us." She says hurriedly, trying to get it all on the table before the emotion evades her.

"No." I know: very eloquent. She runs this through her brain, picking through for pieces she might have missed the first time.

"Okay, that's fine. But," She asked, pulling the car into the parking lot. An awkward silence ensued as she hunted for a spot. When she finally had the car in park, she rested her forearms across the console between us and turned to face me fully. "Is it okay if I want to kiss you?"

"If you must." I say, though I secretly want it, too. She lifts one hand and cups my cheek, careful and gentle, not rough or hurried. When her lips meet mine, they're neither dry nor cracked, but soft and smooth. She looks hungry, like she's going to eat me up.

I pull back. "Let's get some food, okay?"

She smiles at me again, but this time it seems genuine, like she couldn't stop it if she wanted to.

"And you have to catch me up on what I missed. That wasn't it for our little talk."

She reaches over and laces her fingers through mine. "I'm glad you're here." She says, and sensing my discomfort, pulls her hand back as soon as she says it.

"Me too." I say, though it hasn't sunk in yet and I'm still trying to figure this whole thing out.

She asks for a table, and we're led past booths full of shouting children and their mothers trying to clean off their sticky hands with dry napkins. We sit at a tiny square table with two chairs and a single flower wilting in a glass between us, beside the specialties menu and the little tray of sweeteners. She picks up one of the pink ones and shakes it until all of its contents are gathered tightly at the bottom. "Saccharin." She says, without checking the label. "That's what this one's called, right?" She looks at me for confirmation, and I nod. She checks the label, just to be sure. "It's Emily's favorite. Makes lab rats lumpy." She tucks it back in with the others.

"What are these called?" She asks, running her finger over the edges of the tiny packets.

"The blue one, Equal, it's aspartame. That's what they put in diet soda. The yellow one, splenda, is sucralose. That's what fat people bake with."

She laughs and tears open one of the pink packets, sprinkling a bit onto her tongue. She cringes a bit, and sets it back down neatly on the table. She repeats this with the other two, lining the three up in a neat row on the table when she's done, in order of hue. "The aspartame is the most mild," I say, and she looks at me intently and nods. "The saccharin is the worst. Bad aftertaste. Like something crawled into your mouth and died."

"Maybe it was the lab rats."

"Seems probable."

She chuckles. The waiter, a college kid in his twenties, hurries over and asks us what we want.

"Can I get a fruit salad and some veggie bacon?" She asks, scanning the menu for vegan food. "And a glass of orange juice."

He turns to me. "I'll have some French toast with link sausage. And a cup of coffee, please." We hand him our menus and he nods at us and walks away.

"He was cute." I say and she mmhmm's her agreement.

"Okay, really. You have to fill me in on the last few months. I have no idea what's been going on in your life. Fill me in." I repeat, resting my chin on my palms.

She takes a minute, looking for a place to start, I assume. She finally just gives up. "What do you want to know?"

I can't think of anything in specific. "Elisabeth." Is the only word that will come to me.

"I got pregnant in February. I thought it was Danny's, but the hospital ran a paternity test and it said it was Tracy's. I don't know." The conversation takes a nosedive and we both fall silent.

I fight the next words back into my head several times, but they persist despite all my efforts. "How many guys did you sleep with?"

She laughs because she doesn't know what else to do. "Umm, other than you, there was Danny and Tracy."

"Okay." I respond.

"Is there anything else you want to know?"

"Tell me about Stella Sinclair." I say, and I can see the memories flood back into her head, gripping her neck and choking her.

"She was the broken one. The stray cat. Nice girl, debilitating depression. Always wasted. She was really tiny and fragile, always sat hunched over. And when she was sixteen, her parents died in a plane crash. She poured everything she had into her brother and he killed himself. That's what broke her." She says. "She always talks about her brother, talks to him like he's there to hear her."

"Shit." I say, unable to think of anything else to say. "So she was the one who wrecked?"

She squeezes her eyes shut and lets them beat tears out of the way as they flutter open. "Yes." She says, smiling tragically at me. "Yes."

"Okay. And you're doing okay?" I ask, though I know it's a stupid question.

"In relativity, I suppose I am." She reaches across the table to hold my hand, but catches herself. "Does this make you uncomfortable?"

"A little," I admit, but I reach out and take her hand anyway. "It just seems a little foreign."

"I miss you."

Suddenly, I feel like all the space between us is an enemy to be conquered and reach over to take both of her hands. She's dead silent, and I'm dead silent, and we won't look at one another. Well, I guess you're supposed to do one thing a day that scares you, right?

She turns and looks at my face like it's transparent and she's watching all the gears turning un my head. I guess this is how it goes. I sit here and narrate the occurrences to myself like I'm in a story, because Aria is a story that needs to be told and I wonder how long it will be until I see her next. After this, of course. She's staring out the window, looking at nothing with a whole lot of interest. She looks intense.

"What are you thinking about?" I ask, testing a hand on top of hers. She acts almost as if she doesn't feel it.

She ropes her first answer in before it can escape, and rearranges the words into something else. "Liz." She pauses. "Elisabeth. I shouldn't nickname her."

"What are you going to do about it?" It sounds like a taunt.

She tries to laugh, but mostly just blows air out of her nose and sighs heavily. She repositions her elbows on the table and buried her head in her palms, fingers tousling her hair. Her hair that always smells like Pantene and strawberries, and…

Stop.

Okay.

"It's fine." She says, not sure if she even believes it. "I mean, I'm still waiting for it to full force _hurt._ But right now it just feels a bit numb. It hasn't sunk in yet."

I understand what she means, though she said it in a cliché. It feels as though it's just sitting on the surface inside of you, too thick to sink through the mesh. "Well, I'm sorry."

I guess I'd spent enough time around her to know when she was on the edge. It would only take a little more shaking her around and it would all hit her at once. It would all sink in. I was almost terrified of what she'd do when that happened. Would we be back to square one?

"How do I know I can trust you?" I ask.

"Well," She gnaws on her lips, "You don't. I could lie and tell you a lot of things, but that's the truth."

"I don't think I trust you."

"I don't trust me either." As honest as this is, it's unnerving. If she's trying to prove herself to me, shouldn't _she _at least think she's got it together?

The waiter breaks the intensity between us as he hovers, handing us platefuls of food. I watch her pick at her veggie bacon, crumbs falling onto the table. When he leaves, she runs her fingers through her hair, right down the part, once more.

"Is there something you're not telling me?" I scorn at her, suddenly ready to pick through her every syllable like I'm going dumpster diving.

"Probably. I mean, not on purpose. What do you want to know? I'll tell you anything."

I narrow my eyelids, waiting for her to squirm under my gaze. She holds her ground, almost statuesque in her stillness. "There's nothing that stands out to you? Nothing I should know?"

Now she looks like a lab rat squirming under observation lights, and she probably doesn't think I can see. "I already told you. I can't think of anything. But you can ask me whatever you want." She says.

I sigh despite my better knowledge. "Okay." Then I take a bite as an excuse not to talk, and she nibbles at her food haphazardly because she doesn't want to stand there and wait for me to finish so she can talk to me again. She isn't even sure she wants to.

"Spencer?"

I take another bite.

She exhales the breath that was meant to come out as words, and they fill the space between us. Become the enemy, the one that needs to be defeated. I try not to lean away from breathing them in, floating like feathers. Pouring out of her mouth like candle wax.

She is too still. She is a statue.

I reach out and touch her face, lifting her gaze up to meet mine. I lean forward and kiss her lightly on the lips. She looks surprised, but it doesn't break her out. I can see the self-loathing in her downward gaze, summoning only the courage to watch her own lap, hands cupped beneath mine on the table.

I know she's not telling me something, but I decide not to push her. The harder I push, the harder she hangs on to the information. It will come out later, I know.

I try to restart the conversation, but there's nothing else I want to say to her, and I can offer only a few reassuring gazes, but she never picks them up. The trail of steam lifting off of her food is thinning, and it's missing only a few bites. "You need to eat that." I look at her tiny wrists, bone protruding.

She lifts a slice of bacon and slides it between her teeth, raising her eyebrows at me as if to say, is that better?

"Are you gaining weight?"

I don't think she wants to tell me, but decides hanging onto the information will do her more harm than good. "Not really." She sips at her orange juice, tucking hair behind her ears. "I'm eating." She says, pushing down the second slice of bacon as proof.

"How do you feel?"

"Kind of shaky. Like I'm running off of caffeine instead of sleep." She stirs her orange juice with her straw, then stops the top to create a suction, and lifts the straw full of orange juice to her lips and lets it flow into her mouth. "I don't sleep. I can't sleep."

I think I know this trick. You gush with all sorts of arbitrary information so people think you're telling them everything they need to know. She waits for me to jump in, but I don't.

"You know, I've been clean for three weeks now."

She sounds so proud of herself, I just want to take her face in my hands and shake it. I don't acknowledge her confession. I just think about her, seven months ago, sleeping on my bed as the chemicals leaked out of her skin and hung in my air like dust in an old abandoned house. She told me, _when I want to stop I can._

I wipe off my lips with my napkin, lifting both syrup and the residue of her kiss, and stand up. "I'm ready to go."

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, let's go." This makes her feel better, and she fishes a twenty out of her pocket and leaves it on the table. "Where do you want to go?"

The cold air hits me like a whiplash when we push through the door. I'm suddenly very tired, ready to go home and sleep. The day is a nice kind of cold, Aria's kind of weather where the sun is still shining bright and clear but can't seem to break the chill. The warmth is on its way, not fading out. It's exactly how she likes it. "Home."

"Whose home?"

"I don't care. Your home?"

"I want to sleep."

"So do I."

And that settles that.


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: this was going to be two short chapters, but I don't like to let my chapters fall below 2,000 words, so I merged them. Also, I'm liking the present-tense style less and less, so you may catch me accidently switching to past. Sorry if this happens.**

When we wake up, it's raining. She brushes hair from her eyes and climbs out of the bed, yawning. I only notice this because there are raindrops streaking my window and I like to be awake to watch these things, since this is the only month they happen in. I lean out of the bed to pull my phone from my purse on the floor, checking for messages. There are none.

"Spencer?" She asks, sensing I'm awake. I blew my cover. I was enjoying just sitting here and listening to the pitter pat of the rain beneath the warmth of the blankets, still holding onto her heat.

I wiggle my toes between the sheets. "Mmhmm?"

She's staring at the color palette of gray falling outside, feet curled beneath her. Her clothes are dismantled and the only expression on her face is one of total despondence. I prop myself up on one elbow to try to initiate eye contact, but she won't look at me. I know she hates the color gray because she feels like she's made the world sad. How selfish.

"Aria?" I ask, reluctantly sliding my feet out of the bed into the cold air in my room.

"You have your AC on." She says, pulling a blanket over her shoulders.

I walk over and sit down next to her, "I know. I like it when my room's cold because then the blankets get warmer."

"It's an illusion." She says.

"I know. It feels that way, though, and that's how I like it."

I think about offering her a blanket to keep the cold away, but the cold got here first and I'm more comfortable with it than I am with her. She shivers, but doesn't ask me to turn the heat on.

"Are you hungry?" I ask, mostly as a formality, since she is a guest. She definitely feels like one.

She shakes her head, then stops. "Would it make you feel better if I ate?"

I deny her the truth on this one because what she eats is really none of my business what she eats. "I don't care. But you should eat, if you're hungry."

She exhales sharply and her shoulders relax. "I'm really not. Is that bad?"

"I think it is." I sigh.

She sighs back, almost aggressively. "I'm trying. My appetite just won't come back."

I don't respond to her. I can't think of anything relevant to say, so I just sit there in silence, still tired though I've just awoken. I can't shake the weariness deep within my bones. Everything in the whole rom feels off, like someone snuck in while we were sleeping and shifted everything six inches to the left.

I stare at her stomach as she breathes, looking for a ghost of the soft, slight belly she used to carry, only noticeable when she leaned over. Now there is nothing but a bit of extra skin from carrying Elisabeth. Her body is decrepit. I imagine the skin under her clothes, marking it like a mannequin as I tally all the scars she has. The ones she gave herself before she got into the hospital, the ones older than that, the gashes that used to be occupied by little shards of glass and plywood, stretch marks on her stomach. Maybe, if she'd taken things that far, track marks on her arms.

I almost want to freeze time so I can peek under her clothes at all the wormy scars residing on her once-clear skin, if only to catalog them. My curiosity is nagging, but I push it down.

I want to hold her, so I make my slow way across the room and rest a single hand on her shoulder, hosting the cold.

"Hey," I say, tucking my hair behind my ear. She is no longer appealing like she used to be, in her unaffected, confident mastery of human attraction, but in this way I think she is more beautiful, in the stronger sense of the word.

"I know that you think I'm really broken and fragile, but I feel exactly the same as I did before." She says, taking the words directly out of my head. "Do you remember your first time with Toby? How you thought you'd feel like a different person or something, like Spencer _plus_ sex. But you were still just Spencer?"

I nod, but she's still facing away and can't see it, still watching the rain like it has more to do with her than it does.

I want to tell her I don't think she's broken and fragile, but I'm still waiting for her to prove to me that she isn't.

The phone rings shrilly, piercing the still we had cast upon ourselves. She scrambles across the room to snatch it off the nightstand, swiping her thumb across the screen and demanding, "Hello?"

The owner of the other line breathes into the phone. You know, like they do in horror movies. She recognizes the breathing and hisses, "Tracy, get off the fucking phone."

My stomach drops into my shoes, sloshing around with leftover French toast. It feels like I am stepping on it. I sink further into the bed I'd fallen against, trying to beg some sort of comfort from its holds.

"You're so fucking irresponsible I just—" She cuts herself off and holds her breath inside her mouth, letting it out in a huff. "Tracy, this is your fucking responsibility." She slams the phone down on the nightstand, and slumps against it.

I don't know what else to ask her, can't think of anything reassuring, so I just ask her, "Is everything alright?"

That makes her laugh. She actually and literally laughs at me, and then says, "No. No, things are not alright. I think I have to go." She takes her coat off the chair and yanks it into a knot around her waist, rushing around the room and shoving things into her purse. "I have to go."

I've learned not to question people in times like this, no matter what. You won't get a straight answer and it will just piss them off. "I'm going with you."

"No, no, this is my problem. My asshole boyfriend. You stay here." She tries to blanket me. "I'll be back in a day or so, I'm sorry."

I grab her by her arm, holding her back as she's about to leave. "I'm not letting you go alone." I spread each word out like I'm teaching it to her, and she yanks away sharply. "I can go wherever I want, Spencer." I tighten my grip, pulling her back. I know I'm making her angry, but I can't bring myself to care. I won't let go, and she's growing more and more frustrated.

"Fine!" She almost shouts, finally freeing her arm from my death grip. "You can come. But you stay. In. The. Car." She snarls, taking off down the hallway, me trailing behind her. I'm desperate to find out what happened, but I resist the temptation to ask.

"Hurry up!" She cries at me. "This is important." I swear I see her stub her toe on the corner of the wall, but she takes no notice. Despite the situation, I almost laugh.

I snag my keys off the wall, because I don't want her driving angry, and beat her to the driver's side. She silently obliges and climbs into the passenger seat, arms crossed over her chest, the only human sound in the car being her huffing and puffing, but she's already calmed down significantly.

The drive is long and uneventful, stretched out like taffy by her urgency, a constant and hurried nagging I can't seem to swallow.

GPS ends when I pull off of the nearest main street. Tracy's house is not worthy of Global Positioning, apparently. I remember the dirt road, the way it pretends to be a street but is really just a driveway, giving way to a nicer paved one when you get closer to the house. The old oak tree is still looming over the house, and I wonder how they sleep at night without worrying it's going to come crashing through the roof.

Aria doesn't knock, she just jams the door open and all the stale air inside comes flooding out at us, filling our lungs with stagnant breaths. She calls out, "Tracy?" There's no answer. The next time she calls him, it's a lot less accommodating. It's now that I realize I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I volunteered to be her chaperone. She storms into an empty room painted yellow, a yellow illuminated gold by the setting sun peeking into her window curiously, and emerges with a bundle of blankets that's fussing at her impatiently. She's muttering incoherent obscenities, snatching things like diapers and blankets and bottles, making trips to and from the car to dump things. I just stand there, because I am in no place to interfere.

Finally, she emerges from one last room carrying an infant car seat stuffed with baby clothes and diapers, and huffs to me, "Let's go."

I sigh myself, and push my weight off of the wall that had been supporting it. "Can I ask what happened?" I've just driven all the way up here, an eight hour drive that felt like eighty, and she hasn't offered me so much as a simple explanation.

She considers this, not sure if she has time to deign to explain this to me. "Tracy called and said he had to run out of town. And he left Elisabeth." She finished, the anger threatening to pierce her voice again.

"I thought he was the only one with legal custody. He can't just decide he has somewhere better to be and dump her on you."

"Yeah, but he did." She says matter-of-factly, and heads back out to the car, where Elisabeth is squirming in the passenger seat. "He did."

"You shouldn't have come to get her. You can't accommodate him, or he'll keep doing this to you." I say, standing by as she organizes everything, ready to help if she asks me, which she doesn't. As she straps the car seat down in the back, I finally slide back into the driver's seat, which is where I belong in this situation. I am just a witness. Finally, she collapses into the seat next to me, all out of muttered curses and spitting hatred. I do not ask her any more questions, and she does not give me any more answers. I wait for some kind of cue from her, but she's sinking into a state of passivity, and her child is still fussing in the back seat. I look to her, hoping she'll pick up the responsibility, but she makes no such indication. I stare at the radio controls on the console for a minute, remembering our petty arguments about which radio station to listen to, these things that didn't even matter.

I yank my seatbelt off of my body and it zips back, the latch hitting the door as I climb out of the car, Aria still in the passenger seat staring off despondently. I make every movement slowly and cautiously, waiting for her to jump in and take over, like she should be. But she doesn't, so I open the back door and lift Elisabeth out of her car seat, holding her out away from my body as I inspect her. I feel like the orangutan from the beginning of the lion king.

As it turns out, she needs a diaper change. Don't get me wrong, I've changed diapers before. However, this infant, made of little bits of Aria and Tracy, a potpourri of all the things they've screwed up in the past month, feels entirely out of my realm of experience. I keep her an arm's length away as I change her, too afraid to bring her close. She cries the entire time, clearly as uncomfortable with me as I am with her. When she screams and kicks and Aria doesn't respond, I feel like joining her in her tantrum.

When I'm done, the fussing has settled to a dull roar, and I strap her back down, returning to the front seat. "I changed your baby."

She nods. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Then I start the ignition, and pull out of the driveway, trusting that she has not forgotten anything.

The drive back seems shorter. We only have to stop four times, which seems reasonable when in the company of a baby. Each time, Aria assumes her maternal roles and I fill up the car with gas or head inside to buy snacks, which I nibble at nervously while Aria ignores them, as though they're not there. It's pitch black outside, light offered only by the moon and the lamp posts scattered along the highway. The hours roll past when we're not looking, and it's three thirty in the morning before we finally roll into my driveway, no sign of external life in the neighborhood. I'm glad it passes quickly, though I have to worry about the infant with the capacity for mid-night screaming when I share the house with my parents.

I decide to just offer her Melissa's barn, though there is minimal furniture. She graciously accepts, and disappears for the rest of the night, and I fall into my bed with alarming velocity.

I don't really know what to think about today. It's like she had said, it has yet to actually sink in. Everything inside my head seems too rushed, so I just try my best to blanket it all under a thick layer of _Sounds Like a Tomorrow Problem_, drifting off to sleep faster than anticipated.

When I wake, it's still early. Since I had gotten to bed so late, I expected to sleep in, but my brain was still in overdrive, my head too loud for sleep. I sigh and slump out of my bed dramatically, if only to humor myself. I don't want to deal with what's waiting for me outside of these four walls. I almost expect her to be gone by now, to have fled out of guilt. Maybe she realized she was imposing, and wanted to duck out as quickly as possible. I hope she didn't do that, because then I'd just have to go find her and it would make things worse.

I slide out of last night's clothes and into the shower, slipping into autopilot, escaping my mind of only for a few moments as I wash all of last night's memories off of my skin, but they hold their ground inside my head. I'm still so tired, but I know there's no hope of sleep, so I keep moving forward. Forward momentum, I tell myself, though I do intentionally slow myself down as soon as I exit the confines of the bathroom.

I try to peer into the windows of the barn from the bathroom window, but the curtains are drawn, and no shadows are crossing them. I want to stay where I am, where things are steady and stable, but curiosity lures me out. I delay heading out to check on her by brewing a pot of coffee and pouring myself a bowl of cereal to munch on. I watch our grandfather clock tick, trying to count the seconds with a rate identical to its. I'm stalling and I know it, but it feels good. Like all the creases in my life have been ironed out, just for now. My body tries to rebel against the business, but I push it still. All of last night's rainclouds have dissipated, but moisture is lifting out of the ground as the sky reclaims it, and the air still feels wet. Dew drops sink into my pants as I walk across the lawn to the barn, knocking on the door.

There's no response.


	22. Bonus Material

**Bonus material: Aria**

**This is set before Aria comes back to Pennsylvania, just to explore her views on things that may have been unclear. Enjoy!**

I push my sleeves down my arms and lean as far across the sink as I can, staring as closely at my reflection as I could. I swear I could feel the cold tingling sitting beneath my skin, lifting my flesh apart. Slowly, not like a rip. The bathroom is colder than all of the others, too many windows. The sunset is washing the dirty scene, my marred body.

The scars on my face from the flying glass during the wreck, floating like dust but slicing me like knives. How my perception of time was so skewed, so accelerated by the adrenaline ripping through my veins that everything seemed to be moving in slow motion, though my body couldn't keep up with my mind and I caught the blow.

As I should have. As all of it should have come flying at me, sliced and diced me and spared Stella.

My mind is reeling like a fishing line drawn in too quickly. It even makes the same noise. I can't stand the look of my own face, the way it pleads with itself to have a little sympathy, to take pity. I don't need any more of my own pity, though right now I seem to be living off of it.

My scars burn and itch, and as though they were laced with poison. I felt so done, like there was nothing left for me in this world. My baby would cry and I would walk right past her as though she were a doll. As though she were nothing.

I grabbed at my wrists, feeling the scars that were on the outside of me and the inside of Spencer. When I had let her see them, I gave them to her. She was just strong enough to fight back, whereas I was not.

I know that it's often said that scars are nothing to be ashamed of, that they're just proof that you were stronger than whatever tried to hurt you. People, I think, tell themselves this so they can feel good about giving in to the enemy: they feel like it gives them an identity. It is the most lustful form of senseless dishevelment, and it is nothing to be proud of. No, the scars are just a constant reminder of how fucking weak I was.

Even the ones I didn't carve myself. The ones I dragged home when I left Danny's house, the ones that flew onto my skin when I slammed the gas and the car hit the concrete.

Yes, that's a hard pill to swallow. The suicide pill. The thought makes me want to gag, and I can't tell if it's because I tried,

Or because I failed.

I don't like to think about these things. They make all of my clean skin feel dirty and all of my dirty skin, my scars, feel clean. They make me feel backwards, pull me down into a world where everything is wrong but nobody knows it.

Does that still make it wrong?

As a potential resident of the aforementioned world, I don't think I'm qualified to answer that question.

My head tries to wrap itself around the concept of manslaughter, tries to placate me with meaningless chatter.

Maybe Stella wanted to die.

Well, of course Stella wanted to die. Look at what she was doing to herself, for God's sake. Anyone could see that she was ready to be done, ready to finally be at peace. And maybe that was the most I could have given to that little broken girl. All those times I was desperate to do something to ease her pain, all lead up to that one little flash of supreme, commanding guilt where my mind knew only one thing: death.

It could have meant any number of things, but my body responded in the exact way that made sense to it. It might have landed me where I am today, a place where I didn't exactly dream of ending up, but as the memories come back to me, I can't find any other logical sequence. Within the situation, the way I responded seems perfectly rational, but when I try to apply it elsewhere, it dissipates. I'd never think it any otherwise.

Realizing the lies I've been feeding myself, I yank my train of thought off its current track and try to transplant it. God, Stella's lack of will to carry on doesn't justify killing her. Of course, I didn't mean to kill her. But I _did._

I don't think this is something that will ever leave me. No matter how much I try to fix myself, it will still be the same. I can pick it apart and try to rationalize little bits of it, but honestly, you can't fraction the truth. I'll always end up right back at square one. Sometimes, I'll even trick myself into thinking that I've made sense of the mess, but it will always be an illusion. I know myself well enough to know this.

Tracy does not understand this. Spencer will not understand this.

I did go back to Javi's, and he told me he knew what I was feeling, since he had basically been the oxygen to the flame of her drug addiction, but there was a barrier between us. It was the difference between leaving the stove on and dropping a match on the carpet.

He really had no reassurance to offer me.

Now, standing in front of this pane of glass, I tell myself that's all it is, just a pane of glass. And I am more than that. Right? My reflection is angry at me. She won't leave me alone with her aimless taunting and angry yet cautious prodding.

The light from the sunset is fading out too fast, I want to pull it back. I am not yet ready to face the night, I need the sun as my counterpart in my battle against these demons. I cannot see them properly in the dark, and most of the time, my aim is off.

I don't like to try to go to sleep until I know I'll be out cold almost immediately. My bed is the worst place, where I am too still to silence the screaming with constant motion. Even now, with the last of the daylight still coating my face, I am not enough to fight them off. And they know weakness when they see it.

I know weakness when I see it, too. I guess this falls under the category of 'it takes one to know one,' since I've spent quite a bit of time surveying the realm of my own personal downfalls. I guess people are the most real, they make the most sense, when they're too broken down to even worry about how they look to the rest of the world. It may look chaotic, but in it there is order. Reason. All of those things that people hide inside themselves, so no one else can see their gears turning, and threatening to creak to a stop. They cover it with skin, because no matter what they tell you, skin is not transparent. You can't see what someone's got hiding out. Sometimes they drop little hints, but no one ever sees them. No one notices.

I know that the only place where I was ever lifted above my problems instead of pulled down beneath them was with Spencer. I sometimes allowed myself to believe the two were the same, as long as they were equidistant from the point of origin, the thing I was trying to escape. It's like I said before: there are two worlds. One where the whites are whites, and one where the whites are black. It was just a matter of what felt more like home, the view through the camera or the view of the negatives.

The only place where all these scars I wear are just that, scars, is with Spencer. They turn back into something tangible, they lose all their leverage. They can no longer rip me apart.

I have thought about getting them removed, but I think that would kind of feel like cheating. I put them there, now I have to deal with them. That's how life goes. You fuck something up, you deal with the consequences. There's no way out of it, so you might as well try to take it like a man instead of looking to weasel your way out.

You'll never convince me otherwise.

The entire process of trying to dig myself out of this pit and then feeling so guilty, as though I'm at large, and burying myself beneath it, makes me feel like a modern day Sisyphus. I will always end up right back where I was before. But still, the false solutions glimmer like oases in the distance, and sometimes I don't even care that they're assuredly mirages. Sometimes the pursuit of freedom, the epic battle, is better than the reward itself. The lead up is the only worthwhile thing I even have anymore. Everything else is a gigantic goddamn disappointment.

This is what my life has been reduced to. I duck and dodge the elephant in the room, trying to build a solution around it. I pretend like it doesn't exist, and I do a pretty good job. But I know that it's where all the roads lead back to, it's the only real solution. But still, I'm sure my life has turned into one massive trick question because I don't think this puzzle piece is perfect either. Still, I know what I need to do.

I need to go home.


	23. Chapter 23

I knock again, repeating with increasing urgency, until finally the door swings open and Aria is standing in front of me, sleepy eyed, with Elisabeth perched on her hip, chewing on her hair. "What's up?" She asks.

"I thought you'd left."

"Nope. I'm studying for my GED, come on in."

I hadn't even know that she dropped out. With all the preoccupations in my life, my grades had slipped and I'd missed more school days than I wish I had, but I am still enrolled. "Okay." I lift Elisabeth off of her hip, bouncing her in my arms. She reaches back out for Aria and fusses.

"She hates me."

"She does not."

I scoffed, but continued trying to appease her with some more bouncing, but she won't settle.

A few of Aria's things are already spread across the barn, as though she's been living here for a while. The mattress in the corner is bare, I had forgotten to give her bedding.

"So you're a mother now." I say, the fingers on my free hand perched on the kitchen counter like a spider doing push-ups.

"I was a mother four months ago." She says, looking for some busywork to break the awkward. I nod my confirmation, wishing I could slip out of this conversation, set down her baby and go back to the shower, like I knew I should have.

"Do you regret her?" I push, as Elisabeth yanks at my hair with her slobbery hands, and I'm trying to pull her away.

"You shouldn't ask people questions like that." She's pulling clothes out of a duffel bag and folding them meticulously, though she has nowhere to put them. "You know there's no right answer."

"Well, I figured since I just sacrificed my entire Saturday driving you three states over, you could at least let me know what's going on in your life." I internally chastise myself for the passive aggressive words, but I make no attempt to take them back.

She huffs at me, "No one made you come."

"No one's making you stay in my barn."

"It isn't your barn." She says, then tries again, "I'm sorry. I meant thank you. For everything."

I know she hates accepting other people's help because it makes her feel unworthy, but I hate trying to do something nice for someone and having them push you away because they're too prideful to accept your help. "Well, you're welcome." I say, though I don't really mean it. I almost want her to leave. It was easier that way, simpler.

Now everything gets rearranged again, like someone took the etch a sketch of my life and threw it at a wall.

I guess we just have to try to keep moving in the right direction. Right now, things are a little twisted, but we've got a good start and we're moving forward.

I repeat the words to myself like I believe them, over and over again until I don't even have to think about them anymore, they just run through my head like a chain on a bike. My gaze falls onto the narrow, slight scars on her face, and my mind runs back to the day she told me that those gashes wouldn't scar. I guess telling her that she was wrong won't be very well received, but I still have to combat the urge.

My brain wants me to rip it out. The way she looks at me, she has to be egging me on. I know she's just waiting for me to burst so she can just get to work repairing things. But right now, I'm holding it together, as I intend to continue doing, and it makes her nervous. The element of surprise makes half the fight.

I guess trust is one of those things that has to be reciprocated. You trust someone and they keep cautious around you, you start to get the feeling they aren't trustworthy after all. Besides, no one likes one ended relationships. So I guess, if you're being fair, you could say I pushed her to this. She has returned to her study guide, though I know it's only holding a fraction of her attention. I know she's stealing glances at me when she thinks I'm not looking.

Honestly, I'm just waiting for something to happen. There's nothing else to do here besides pretend all of this is a lead up to something worth waiting for. I'm not tired enough to quit yet.

"So, what's going on?" I ask.

"I told you," She says, ticking at a piece of paper with a wooden pencil. "I'm studying. What do you have planned?" She tries to switch the conversation over to small talk, but I pull it back.

"What's going on with Tracy? With Elisabeth? With this entire thing I got dragged back into?"

"Tracy is in New York. I think he's visiting Ed. Something to do with cocaine." She scoffed, "So I get the kid. Who isn't even mine anymore."

I run through this in my head, trying to feel the emotions she must surely be feeling right now. "Why do it? Why go and get her? Don't you think you're encouraging him to do whatever the hell he wants?"

She sighs, dropping her pencil and standing up straight. "I guess so. But I couldn't just leave her there."

"I think you could have. I mean, what would have happened to the custody battle if the cops had broken into an empty house with an unattended screaming infant?"

She gave me a strange, quizzical look, like she couldn't believe I'd suggest such a thing. "So I put my own daughter in danger to prove a point?"

"It's not actual danger. You don't wait for the cops to show. You call them."

"Okay, that's a good idea, but what about now? We already have her."

"Well, I have to ask you. Do you want custody?"

She sighs, opens her mouth to speak, then sighs again. "I don't want it. I need it."

"Okay, then. Here's what we do." I speak excitedly, my voice growing in enthusiasm. I feel like if we don't act quickly enough, our window of opportunity with slip out of our hands. "You keep her. As long as you need to. Then, when he comes back to get her, you take it to court. I can get my mom to represent you-"

She cuts me off, "I don't want your parents to know anything about the past year of my life. No more than they need to. Next option."

I huff at her. "You're going to have to take what you can get."

She readies herself for the words she's about to say, clasping her hands together on the counter as she peers up at me through the curtain of hair falling over her face. "I need you more."

I push my hands over and seal the gap between us, my knuckles fitting between hers. "Aria-"

"Don't try to walk me out of this. I know what I'm talking about. If your parents get involved, they won't let me around you anymore. I know this for fact. I don't care. I'll do what I can to get Elisabeth, but I can't lose you in the process."

I can't believe what she's just admitted to me, that she's prioritized me over her own daughter. I feel as though I should have something to offer in return, but my search turns up empty, so I stand there in silence. Total silence.

"You're not going to lose me." I frown at her, worried that I even gave her this impression, that I am something to be careful around as to avoid losing it.

She shakes her head. "I don't want to risk any of it. I don't know if I can take being pushed away from you again. It matters to me. I know it doesn't seem logical to you, but this is the way it has to be for me. I can't do it. It's going to… it's going to mess me up." She gestures to the empty space across the room. "Last time I was in a courtroom, it was for Stella. Tracy and I…" she trails off, and I stare at the space she'd gestured at like I'm actually looking at what she had described. She sighs, and I turn back to look at her again. "This isn't going to be easy. Right now, this is your chance to back out. I know that I was the one who fucked this up and I'm not going to tie you into it against your will."

"No, I'm not going to leave you. This is our thing."

She breathes a massive sigh of relief. "Okay."

At that's when I decide we took a wrong turn somewhere along the way. "Realistically, how long will you be staying here?"

"How long can I?" she says, scanning my eyes for some sort of hint. I shake my head.

"I don't know."

That night, I fall asleep on the still naked mattress beside her. And I do not try to explain it to myself.

Her phone rings late at night. So late, I've almost forgotten the world I'm living in, and things feel normal. When it wakes me up, it feels like I'm returning to a dream instead of escaping one. With her baby in her arms, she is curled up on the mattress. The picture of the capital building hanging from the wall is reflecting off her face in the yellow light. She looks peaceful. There's something about the way people look when they're sleeping that I've always found intriguing. They're not aware of all the masks they wear slipping off their faces.

She's a heavy sleeper. She always has been. I know she won't wake up to stop me. Still, I could just shut the phone off and go back to sleep, pretend like I didn't hear anything. I know that's what I probably should do.

But really, I never learned to take my own advice.

I answered it quickly, suddenly fearful of rousing her. "Hello?"

Though it's marginally distorted, I recognize the voice almost instantaneously. "Sarah?"

"Spencer."

"Oh, shit. I'm sorry." He curses himself, "Is Aria there?"

"She's asleep. I'll take a message." I say, leaning against the counter it rested on, hostility that had been suppressed by my fatigue pushing at the surface.

"Can you have her call me in the morning?"

"She's not going to call you." I state firmly. "I will take a message."

He huffs, and I can almost see his scowl through the phone. "I need to tell her I'm sorry for dumping Liz on her. It was a dick move. I'm ready to take her back, if that's what Aria wants."

I hear something in his voice that puzzles me: Is that fear? That she won't give her back? I had convinced myself that he wanted nothing to do with her, which was why he ran off. "I'll tell her in the morning." I think about confronting him about who exactly he thinks he is, what gives him the authority to come and go as he pleases, but this time I do take my own advice: it's none of my business.

"Okay, thanks. Hey, and one more thing: tell her I'm sorry."

"I will," I say, thinking that I'd already agreed to pass on the message. Then it occurs to me that two separate apologies exist, and he's sorry for more than dropping the kid on her. "I will." I reiterate, because the first time I said it no longer feels right.

"Thanks again," He says, then hangs up. I stare at the screen of the phone, trying to decide what I'll tell her in the morning, what I want her to know.

But it's not my business, not my place to decide. I'll tell her everything he said, word for word. I climb back onto the bed, not wanting to miss any more sleep, since I do have school tomorrow.


	24. Chapter 24

**Aria**

It feels weird staying in her house while she's not here, so as soon as she leaves, I strap Elisabeth into the car, along with all that I could need for the day shoved into the trunk. I think about Tracy's message, how he told me he was sorry, and my pulse starts to fluctuate.

I know better than to be near him now. I really do. I'm not going to go back.

But still, the thought is tempting. I almost can't resist peeling off onto the highway and heading up to Vermont.

But I am smarter than that now. Stronger, and I won't do it. I will not make room for instant gratification in my life. I am more than that now, even if I don't feel like it. I am all the things I ever dismissed when I was with Tracy. I am not his girl.

It's getting cold again. For February, the last week has been unseasonably warm, with precipitation falling as rain rather than snow. But the cold bites, and I hold Elisabeth as close to my chest as I can without crushing her, meaning to give more warmth than I take away. She squirms against the cold, burrowing into me. As soon as I have her settled in the back seat, I hop into the front seat and key the ignition and set my hands on the wheel, too still to move.

The frost has turned my windshield opaque, so I have to sit in silence while the heat blasting me in the face cuts through it.

It can't seem to reach my bones, because I am still trying to shake it off, my shoulders turning in towards each other. Maybe I should have dressed warmer.

Finally, when I can see outside, I wheel out of her driveway. The road is smooth and clear, strange to me since I am so adjusted to the dirt and gravel in Vermont, even now.

I don't know what Tracy plans to do, but I'm not going to call him back. I'm going to keep a close eye on my daughter and take things as they come. It seems like the only thing I really can do, just function day by day.

Before, I'd look at Elizabeth, and I'd see nothing. She was not a person, not a child to be tended to, not an extension of me. She was nothing, and I hated myself for seeing her that way, but I could not change it. No matter how many times I tried to think my way out of the rut I was stuck in, solve it like a logic problem, I always ended up in the same place.

But now, now she feels like she's mine. After I watched Tracy walk away with her, after I felt like I had nothing left, I now look at her and it's like I actually feel all those things they tell you you're going to when you look at your daughter. I feel normal, right. I don't know if this makes sense, but it seems to fit with my own reasoning.

"We're going to have a good day today." I say to the backseat, like I think she can understand me.

Foreseeably, I get no response, but it still makes me feel better, like maybe I'm not such a shitty mother after all. But still, I know I am. She could be any shade of broken right now and it would be my fault for what I did while I was carrying her. I don't think I'll ever fully be at peace with this, no matter how long I give myself.

Guilt will never tire of plaguing my bones. There will always be a part of me that plays everything I've done wrong in the past year on repeat, taunting me. Such is only fair. I was the one who put myself in this situation, anyway.

Still, I cower at the thought of spending my future feeling this way. I remember Spencer's words to me, back before she knew what she was talking about. She told me: Only time can heal. I, however, disagree. Time will blanket. Time will turn a wound to a scar to the faded ghost of a scar. But only oblivion, only death, will truly erase.

If that's your definition of healing.

The first step to healing, for me, has always been external confirmation that you are worthy of moving in the right direction again. Someone else has to prove to me that I am worthy of feeling better before I will begin working on it myself. This is why I had to come back for Spencer. She is the only one with the authority to give me the green light on self-healing, and by letting me back in, she has done this.

I can begin now.

So why don't I feel it? What is it that is so strong that it can hold me back from tasting the peace I so strongly crave? What have I done that earned me such a strong conviction?

I know the answer, I just don't have the courage to look it head on yet.

The reason is sitting right here in the back seat of my car, and I know it.

The only thing I can do for myself now is to be better than I was before. I have to protect her from myself, provide her with the things I neglected to until I have cancelled out all the debts. I will have to pay for my sins.

Stealing glances at her to make sure she's still in the backseat, no matter how irrational, I feel better. I'm even able to fight the urge to wrap my fingers around my wrist and sink my nails in deep, as deep as they will go. I don't have a clean slate, but things aren't over yet.

I no longer feel like I need to hurt myself. I think of all those times I destroyed my body for peace of mind I never got, and it makes my head spin. All that irreversible damage I inflicted upon myself. I will wear it until forever.

I guess that these thoughts should feel like I'm getting closure, tying up the loose ends of my story. Shouldn't I feel like I'm nearing the end of this entire ordeal?

Yet, I don't. I feel like someone's watching me, just waiting for me to fuck it all up again, one grand mistake to discard every forward step I'd made. I think that now there are rules for me to follow, as a mother, but they don't seem to resonate with me. I feel no obligation to go about things in any sort of traditional manner.

I peel off the main road to the school parking lot, where I spent so many days trying to hide from what was surely coming after me and the others, racking up enough emotional distress to make me certifiable. Maybe that's why I went down with Tracy, I had a past to escape. I feel my blood threatening to boil as I recount everything that went on between those walls, all the times I feared for my life. I try to relax in my seat, but my muscles keep tensing back up and I return to my rigid sitting position.

I don't really have any reason to be there other than some part of me has dictated that I ought to be, and I feel so heavy all of a sudden that I don't think I have any choice but to sit here. It almost feels comfortable, if you know what I mean. Sitting here in silence with Liz in the back, occasionally restarting the engine to replace the cold, stale air that takes over the cab with fresh, warmer stuff, I don't move for what must be an hour.

Remarkably, she doesn't fuss. She seems to be a pretty happy baby, which I guess I'm thankful for. She's quiet, probably sleeping, staying out of my memories.

I try to imagine Spencer in her classes. It's one thirty, so she'll be in sixth period. I scan my brain, trying to remember what class she has. I fear that it might be Ezra's, because I don't want to think about that, but from what I remember, it isn't. I think it's calculus, which she loves. She loves things that have to make sense. I guess she can blame me in part for that.

It's not raining like it was the day I found her down the block from her house, but the sky is grey and drops of dew are suspended in the air like puppets hanging from the sky. All the air smells like the ground after it rains, and I wish I could catch it all in a jar for her because I know it's her favorite scent, it makes her feel like the world is getting a bath, which most of the time, it needs.

The sound of the heater humming is soothing, almost reminiscent of a lullaby, but I am not tired. I am so much more aware now, now that I know what I've been missing this entire time. I know what I have to look for. I watch the branches of the naked trees shake, feeling the cold. I see the ghosts of all the leaves they'd once nourished, all gone now. All the leaves that had fallen to our feet, been kicked around underfoot, all gone now.

And I say I'm not tired. I guess I am, but not merely in the way that can be put at bay with a good night's sleep. There is nothing to be done about this kind of fatigue, so I don't try.

Really, the next hour passes quickly. It's almost like I am asleep, when you have no perception of time at all. I see all of my peers flooding out of the building like honey oozing out of a jar, and suddenly my central focus becomes trying to pick her out in the crowd.

I don't see her coming when she walks up to my car, knocking on the passenger door, even though I had devoted my full attention. This frustrates me.

"How long have you been here?" She asks casually, sliding into the car.

As much as I want to be honest with her, telling her it was a couple hours seems out of the question. I glanced at the clock on the dashboard. "About twenty minutes. Where do you want to go?" She shoves her bag into the foot space, settling into her seat.

"It doesn't really make a difference to me." I say, which is true.

"I'm just looking for ideas." She says, looking exhausted and ready to do something else. I didn't think it was possible to get her tired of school.

I draw a blank now that she's put me on the spot. There's not much to do in this little town, anyway, so I offer heading back to the house: I'll make coffee and we'll drink it from her favorite tea set, and watch a movie. Inviting her over to her own house makes me marginally uncomfortable, but she doesn't seem bothered by it, so I keep going. "And I'll even cook dinner. If you want."


	25. Chapter 25

When there is no air, you learn to breathe the sea. That, or you drown. Neither is pleasant, though the latter is quicker. No burning as the salt fills your lungs, as your body tries to pull a breath from the liquid, there is only silence. And wondering if you missed the last train to a place where none of this even has to happen. A place where, at least, the water you drown in is warm.

So maybe the world isn't all wrong. You're allowed to look at it like it is, you're allowed to look at it like it's anything. But you can't lie to yourself and say you're never happy. Even when you're at rock bottom, there are still reasons to smile. Reasons like the other people at rock bottom that make you smile with their tragedy, because tragedy does not run in gradients. You are given as much as you can handle, and it hits us all the same.

I feel less like I missed my chance out now, maybe all this shit I was dealt was nonnegotiable, though I definitely could have handled it better. I could have handled it better and not had Elisabeth, but that thought is like a cobra snaking around my neck, threatening to strangle me. I don't think I would do anything to take her back, no matter how much easier everything else became as a result.

The crackling fireplace becomes a focal point, a direct excerpt from my childhood. I want to curl up in front of it with a Sherpa blanket and a mug of cocoa, but at the same time, I never want to move again.

I hold my sleeping daughter in my lap, watching the figures on the screen with halfhearted attention as I run my thumb over Spencer's. She is leaning into my shoulder, finally looking like the entire ordeal isn't giving her chest pain. My two favorite people in the world are within arm's reach, and I feel this fleeting kind of happiness that needs to be held onto.

Spencer watches me when she thinks I'm not looking, trying to soak up as much as she can. I know she still feels strange with Elisabeth around, but not resentful towards my past. She leans in to me and kisses me on the head. I don't even think about it when I snake an arm around her shoulders. What about love is so physiological that it becomes reflex? What made this so powerful that it taps into my subconscious?

"Hey, did you call Tracy back?" She asks.

I think about this, "No, I didn't."

She seems pleased by this, that I decided to take her advice.

I still feel a bit too close to the edge in this moment, a bit wary, since it's been a while since I was allowed to keep something so nice. I kick the blanket down over my feet, feeling the warmth of the fireplace on my soles as I watch the weather outside.

It has become such an easy topic for small talk inside my head. I watch the gray fall and fill the earth, the way it makes everything feel still, though really little bits of the sky are falling down all around you.

"Look, it's raining." I say, as though she's never seen rain before.

She smiles at me. "Let's go."

"What?" I respond, but she's already off the couch.

"Come on!" She lifts Elisabeth out of my arms and places her in her play pen. "Aria," She says, and takes my hand, pulling me over to the side doors and into the rain.

She jumps into a puddle, muddy water flying up onto her clothes. I laugh at her. "Don't just stand there." She scorns at me, walking back over and pulling out from underneath the shelter of her back porch. The cold shoots through me like poison.

Every summer, I swear that I'm sick and tired of sweating and blasting the air conditioner all the time, that I can't wait for winter to come so I can curl up in sweaters and drink hot cocoa. Then, winter comes and more than anything I yearn to lay out on the hot pavement and soak up heat, sipping iced lemonade in a bikini in laughing. It's a different kind of happy, where you know people will understand if you tell them it was the best day of your life. When it's cold like this, no one hears you when you say that it makes you happier than you've ever been.

So, regarding how stupid I feel, I slam my feet into the wet earth, droplets spraying. She laughed at me again, kicking mud onto my jeans, holding out her tongue like she was catching snowflakes instead of rain drops.

My feet cannot fight off the cold, they turn angry red and protest my every movement, but I don't care.

They are feet from another life, and every life I lived before it. Each part of me was there when I met Tracy, when I took my first hit, when I was raped.

And they're still here.

It sounds like something Tracy would talk about high, pondering the futility of our bodies.

Even the things on my body that are not scars stand out like they are, and I don't think that's fair. That I look at my bare feet and think of all the places I walked, all the things I ran away from.

I am able to outrun all the things chasing me when I am with her. They don't stand so much as a chance. My feet smash into the grass, sinking like the earth is just one big sponge. The rain washes me down, carries things away. It is like my body finally decided to stop hanging onto all these things, and now I can shed them like an outfit.

My feet are turning numb and lobster red, and I feel nothing from each step I take. The rain is only a few degrees away from being sleet, or hail, and each drop bites. I watch them slide off of the corrugated metal roof drains, sounding like popcorn as they dance through thin air.

But I don't care. This is where they got me. I am dancing in the rain with Spencer, smiling so hard it hurts. I can't suppress my bubbling laughter, even if I really tried. Her hair is already weighed down with the weight of the rain, falling in her face in little tendrils.

"I'm so cold." She says, arms crossed over her chest. "Let's go in." She laughs, walking over to the garden hose by the door and leaning over the knob, cranking it until even more water is entering the scene. She stands on the cold concrete and washes off all the dirt and grass, then hands it off to me. I spray my cold feet with cold water and walk into her warm living room, feeling like I am thawing.

"Let's take a shower." She offers, shivering by the staircase.

I agree, hurrying over to join her, leaning into her side as we laugh, wobbling up the stairs and towards her bathroom. It's like I said before: I don't feel like Aria plus all of those awful things, I just feel like Aria. With a couple of shitty tales to tell, but who doesn't have those?

My body feels lighter somehow, and not like it did when I lost all that weight. It feels like I'm strong enough to actually carry my own weight again. I don't need to lean on anything, but my head still feels a little bit dizzy, like I've just stood up after a long time laying down.

My feet feel hot with all the blood rushing back into them, and I have raindrops streaming down my face like tears. She doesn't look like she's afraid of me, like I'm going to explode on her at any time.

I'm laughing at things that aren't funny because I need her to keep talking, keep it coming. She smiles onto my skin as she kisses me, holding my hand as we stumble into the shower like drunks. We are too giddy to be this sad. But maybe we weren't meant to make sense.

I turn on the water warm, filling the room with steam as we strip out of our freezing clothes. They form little puddles on the tile squeezed out by our careless footsteps.

Looking down at my body, I freeze. All the scars are standing out blatantly, and I snap out of my high, trying to cover myself up as I dive for a towel. I can't believe I forgot, I'm cursing myself internally, reaching for the clothes on the floor.

"What are you doing?" She asks, hand on my shoulder.

I sputter, "Don't look at me." Those are the only words that come.

"Aria, stop it." She says, and when I stand up and look her head on, she doesn't have to pretend to not look at my body, at all the imperfections that are all I see. It's like they don't even register on her radar.

"Spencer, you don't understand." I say, still trying to shrug off her eye contact.

"Maybe not. But I love you, and you have to stay. I don't care about your past."

I drop the T shirt in my hands, closing the gap between us as she catches me in her arms like I'd been falling. She laughs as she says, "I have some scars, too. Some of them are pretty ridiculous." She pulls me away and shows me one on her thumb. "I was cutting carrots with a butter knife when I was seven, and Melissa came up behind me and scared me. The knife slipped, and there was blood everywhere. God, it scared the hell out of both of us."

I laugh, though it sounds awkward and forced.

"I have worse." She says, pointing to one on her upper thigh. "Dinner party. I was thirteen. I stabbed it so hard on the corner of the glass table, it started bleeding underneath my dress. I had to sit through the entire thing with a napkin wrapped surreptitiously around my thigh."

That one elicits a real laugh, and I shove her arm. "You did not."

"I did so."

We both laughed together, and then she climbed into the shower. "Come on. I'm freezing."

I followed her in, feeling the warm water hammering my shoulders as I took as much warmth as I could. Cold is only the absence of heat. Darkness is only the absence of light. Maybe, all the bad is only the absence of good, and if we fill ourselves with enough of it, the outside world won't have to matter.

When I was with Tracy, I never worried about myself like this because I knew he wasn't really looking. Spencer, however, looks at me like she's seeing right through all the superficial stuff. Like it really doesn't change the way she sees me. There's a difference between not looking, not seeing, and seeing right through like it isn't even there.

"Hey, it's okay." She kisses me, reassuring but not pushy.

"I'm great. I've deduced that the only bad in our lives is just the absence of good."

She smiles at me. "Really?"

"Yes. But the good news is, we get to make our own good." It almost sounds stupid and cliché, out of context, I know it would. But right now it just makes me smile until my cheeks are sore.

She silences me with a kiss, body close to mine, the picture of security and comfort. "I'm glad you're with me. Because I think there's a lot of good to be found here."

I laugh at her, leaning into her skin.

After that, we speak only in silence and shared space.


	26. Chapter 26

**Aria**

I slide out of today's skinny jeans and into a pair of sweatpants, maneuvering out of my wire bra and into a fabric sports one. I had run out to get groceries to compensate for all I've been eating- I have a _little_ cash leftover, and besides, it was nice to get out. Spencer's staying late at school for a project, and I'm standing over the stove, cooking her favorite. Cinnamon pralines. Her parents are out, too, so the house is dead silent, save for when Elisabeth chooses to pipe in.

My fingers are slippery with sweat, the heater working overtime to fight the cold. I pace over to the controls on the wall and turn in down, cracking a window on my way over and feeling the cool, moist air fold around me like a blanket. The room is starting to fill with the smell of butter and brown sugar, and I breathe in deeply, feeling it all fill my lungs. Slowly at first, but then all at once, as I try to wash the stale air and smoke out of my lungs.

The play pen emits a cry, and breaks me out of my trace. I turn and lean over, and see my daughter looking up at me with pleading eyes.

"Hey, what's going on?" I say, still feeling somewhat strange about talking to someone who can't talk back. But I don't like to spend an entire day in total silence, and even hearing my own voice can make me feel better, simulate human contact.

It takes me a minute, but I recognize it as a hungry kind of cry, so I set her back down and turn down the heat on the stove before jogging across her yard to the barn, where I keep the formula.

The place is messier than it ought to be-with me as an unpaid guest with a baby. Before returning back to the main house, I gather up the blankets on the floor and dump them on the mattress, snatching bits of trash off the counters bordering the walls.

Formula and a bottle tucked under my arm, I hurry back and start up mixing the stuff in the kitchen while Liz whines impatiently, squirming in her seat. "Hold your horses." I say to her, shaking the bottle, and stirring the pecans on the stove with the other hand. I grab the remote while I do- channel surfing claims a fraction of my attention as I retrieve her and hold her in my lap and sink into the couch.

So this is teen mother life. Quiet, arduous, and somewhat frustrating. I think of Spencer at school, carefree, save for her school work. She probably ate lunch with the others, or, maybe not. Maybe she sat with Toby, or maybe she was in the library typing up a paper as she gnawed on an apple. She's so determined, so admirable.

But I realize that even that's improbable. There's no way her shoulders are weightless, no way she doesn't feel any of the shit swirling around in her life right now. I can't romanticize other people's lives just because they're different from mine. Just because I've been dealing with the same shit for so long it's about to blind me, doesn't mean other people don't have it just as bad.

I stand up and return to the kitchen, stirring the pecan mixture singlehandedly as I hold Elisabeth, bouncing her up and down. The cold is really starting to fill the room, so I shut the window again, but leave the heat off, because the cold at least feels fresh.

I couldn't help but wonder if Spencer was still mad at me. I'm so sick and tired of fighting that question out of my head, pretending like it isn't an issue. I didn't think Spencer and I were the kind of people to just sweep things under the rug.

But hey, things are healing kind of nicely, right? Why rip open the wound again trying to scrape stuff out when it's going pretty well on its own?

I guess we never scar as nicely as we think we do. You can stretch it out so it turns the same color as the rest of your skin, cake makeup on it, pay thousands for someone to take a scalpel to it. But honestly, you'll always know it _was _there. Part of it will always sit on the surface. Because you can't erase the past, no matter how much you ignore it. It sticks to the soles of your shoes like tar.

I don't really know what to do with myself, so I get back up scrape the almost-done pecans out onto a sheet of wax paper and let myself sink back into the couch, hugging my knees as close to my chest as I can with Elisabeth in the way. She squirms, all she wants is for me to feed her. "Patience." I tell her, extending my legs again and letting them hit the floor with a thud.

This startles Liz, and I chuckle, lifting them back up and dropping them again. She jumps, then giggles at me. I repeat it again, and this time she squeals in laughter, throwing her head back. "Elisabeth!" I say, grabbing her hands and lifting them up in the air, swaying them back and forth. I dropped my legs again, and we both laughed at each other.

God, I'm just a kid. A kid with a kid. I have no business raising a daughter. I mean, shouldn't I be working on studying and doing something worthwhile with my life? I mean, I am a high school dropout, but that's not the end of the road. I know I've been slacking, but motivation doesn't come out of thin air.

I'm such a loser. I laugh again in spite of myself, lifting Liz off my lap by her hands, dangling in the air and giggling back at me as she kicks her feet. She really is beautiful. She has no hair, and little tiny fingernails I'm almost too afraid to trim. The bottoms of her feet are soft like satin, and the newborn-blue of her eyes is giving way to my hazel, not a hint of Tracy's mud brown. Just earthy green and chocolate brown, my favorite feature.

I wish I were an okay kind of girl, one that didn't have such a history of sending everything she touches straight to shit.

I guess it's hard to believe in any kind of supreme force because no god would create the things I've seen. As much as Spencer loves me, as much as she listens, there's a hell of a lot she doesn't know about me.

My mind returns to the night I saw Tracy's friend Adrian with Stella, her back against the wall, eyes glazed over with all the tears she couldn't cry, and the way she finally let them fall when Javi ran into the room and slammed him onto the floor, kicking his face until it poured blood like a fountain. How he turned to look at me, sitting catatonic on the couch with my knees retracted into my chest, arms falling asleep from holding on too tightly. He looked at me, pleaded with me. I didn't move. I met his eye, I watched him scan mine accusatorily, before he grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her out the door more roughly than he'd meant to.

God, the way it all plagues me, I can't fight any of it out of my head. I can lie to myself, to the cops, to Spencer, because the truth never becomes true until you say it out loud. Right? I try to convince myself of this, before finally giving up and surrendering to the futility of my own resistance. You can't run when you _know. _

I don't even want to think about these things. Maybe that makes me weak, that I can hardly survive the weather in my own head, where everything is under my control. How can I expect to do well outside in the real world? Maybe I really have no control, it's all just an illusion. Seems conceivable.

Elisabeth regains my attention, fussing and batting her fists. "Fine, fine." I say, readjusting her in my arms and setting the tip of the bottle in her mouth as she suckles. Being responsible for another human life is such a strange and unsettling thing. I wonder if this is how my parents felt about me when I was young, and if they made enough mistakes on me to do better on Mike. Well, I'm going to go with yes, since he's still in school.

Poor Liz doesn't stand a chance. I hope that my own life is at least enough of a cautionary tale to keep her on her toes. Maybe, with Spencer around, she won't have a chance to fuck things up like I did.

Am I going to raise my daughter with my best friend? Is she going to graduate in May and buy an apartment, and invite me to move in with her? Am I going to accept? I imagine us together as we hand Liz her backpack, watching her head off to her first day of school.

But I won't be surprised if she doesn't want to spend the rest of her life raising someone else's kid. It's all the responsibility, and it isn't even your doing. I can see how she could get tired of us.

"It's okay, Liz. You'll always have me, you know? Whatever happens, you know I'll be right there beside you." I say to her, my thumb stroking her chubby arm.

She burps, and I chuckle. "Touché, little one." I wipe the dribble off her chin with the hem of her shirt and kiss her head. She definitely smells like a baby. Her little tongue pokes out of her mouth, and she launches her head at my chest. When I pull her away, my gray t shirt is bearing a big wet spot. "Thank you. I appreciate that." I say, pushing her away.

I push her off my lap as I stand up, returning her to the play pen. I hadn't noticed the TV was on commercial, so I grab the remote and change the channel. I consider a kid's channel, but I figure I'll be suffering through enough of that when she's actually old enough to know what she's watching, so I settle on an episode of Family Guy, though I've already seen it. "Hey, Liz, what do you think Spence will want for dinner?" I ask as I pluck a praline from the wax paper and pop it into my mouth. It's delicious, possibly the best I've ever made. I chase it with another five as I begin, watching the sun start to retreat back over the horizon as I dig through the fridge for the food I'd bought, thinking about how this is my favorite time of day, when it becomes the time of day to do whatever you've been wanting to since morning: read a book, go for a run, or cook a dinner that fills the entire house with its aroma, even the bathrooms. I pull out an onion, some carrots, and a package of chicken and start chopping.

-While I'm working, it gets dark enough that I have to strain my eyes to see what I'm doing, so I just flip on the oven light. The overhead seems too harsh, I like the softer light.

It's about time I started some pasta, so that's what I busy my idle hands with.

As I'm stirring the vegetables in oil, smell flooding the kitchen, I wonder where Spencer is. Some project this is, why isn't she home yet? I tell myself not to worry, she's such a perfectionist it's probably just taking her ten times as long as it would for anyone else. I imagine her moving to the public library, because the school's probably closed, or maybe she decided to hit the store on the way home.

I cut up the chicken and toss it into a separate pan so Spencer can add it as she pleases, but I don't have to pick it out. Washing my hands immediately, I lean against the counter as I get sucked in to the TV. The show has ended, and the news has taken over.

It takes me a minute, but I decide it's too depressing, watching all the bad of today scraped together and compiled into one hour of news casting. I feel bad, like a passerby gaping at a really bad car wreck, and I change the channel.

A kid's show.

Well, I guess that's suiting.

The day draws to an end like it started- slowly and lazily. I am starting to feel the pull of sleep, but I shake it off, because I don't want to be nodding off when Spencer gets back. I redirect my attention to the food on the stove, since I want it to be perfect for her. If she were making it, it'd be perfect, so I'm going to make it perfect for her.

Just the way she likes things.

A pair of hands snakes around my waist, and I jump, spinning around. "Holy Hell, Spencer, you scared the shit out of me!" I shove her away, and she hits the counter behind her.

"Ow! That hurt!" The yellow light shining from behind me is falling on her face like sunlight, and the dust flying looks like glitter as it flicks light across the room.

"I don't care!" I yell at her, succumbing to laughter.

She laughs with me, and pulls me into her arms, kissing my head. "You're making dinner?" She asks, backing away and stirring the pan with the vegetables with the wooden spoon poking out.

I swat her hand. "Yes. Now go sit down." I say, leading her away by her shoulders.

"Yes, ma'am." She obliges, plopping down on the couch and kicking off her shoes. I can feel the smile still on her face. "You're cute." She comments, lifting her feet onto the coffee table, and grabbing the remote. "Do you mind if I change this? It's not like she's old enough to know the difference, anyway."

"I'm not cute." I retort, digging through the pantry for the alfredo sauce I'd bought. "And go ahead. I think she likes family guy better."

She laughs at me. "Okay. I'll see if it's on."

"Probably isn't. It was on earlier, so." I trail off, pulling plates from the cabinets. "Hey, are your parents going to be here tonight?" I ask, trying to discern whether the food I'm cooking could feed four people. I think it would, but we wouldn't have any left over.

"Yeah, I think so. Have you seen them recently?" She asks, as the alternating voices threaten to give me a headache, so I try to block them out and focus on her voice alone as I formulate a reply.

"No, I haven't." I say, scooping noodles onto a plate.

Suddenly, I jump at a commotion at the door, which pushes open and her mother emerges into the scene, carrying her briefcase with one hand, the other holding a phone to her ear. Dumping it all down on a clear space on the counter, she hangs up the phone.

"Hello, Aria." She smiles at me. "You haven't formally introduced me to your daughter."

I bite my tongue to keep from telling her she's been out too much. "I'm sorry," I apologize, walking over to her play pen to lift her up. "Here she is." I say, returning to the kitchen, bouncing her on my hip as she reaches out to grab at her. "She likes you." I tell her.

"Oh, can I hold her?" She says, reaching out her hands.

I hand her over, "Sure."

Elisabeth turns her head to peer at me, eyes wide. I reach out and wipe the drool off of her chin with my thumb, and turn to rinse it under the faucet. "Are you hungry?" I ask her mother, holding up a completed plate.

"Starving." She replies, smoothing Elisabeth's hair down with her hand. Spencer comes up behind her and takes her out of her arms, cooing at her as I hand off the plate. "Aria, this looks delicious. Thank you."

"I wanted to cook up something as a way to say thank you. I appreciate what you're doing for Liz and me more than you know." I rummage through the drawers and hand her a fork.

"Let's go sit in the dining room." She says. I had pictured us all sitting in the living room around a fire while we watched Liz play, but I'm in no position to argue. I take my daughter back and return her to her the play pen.

Spencer readies the other two plates, turning off the heat beneath the pans. She looks marginally upset that her mother joined. Maybe she too just wanted to sit by the fire with me. I walk over and kiss her shoulder when her mom isn't looking, and lean to whisper in her ear. "She loves Elisabeth."

Spencer turns around and laughs. "She has a weakness for babies."

"That's probably why she's even letting me stay here." I joke. The light from the dining room spills in, and I turn off the oven light, the food sitting in darkness as it continues to lose heat through little wispy clouds of smoke.

Spencer scoffs, her hand brushing mine as she snags her plate and follows her mother into the other room. Making my way after her, I peek into the play pen to check on my daughter. She looks like she's starting to doze off, which is good. She was up late last night.

Spencer pulls out a chair for me, right next to hers, and her mother sits across from us.

"Aria, this smells amazing." Her mother says, taking her first bite after I sit down.

"Thank you. There are pralines and vanilla ice cream for dessert, if you'd like." I respond, smearing a forkful of vegetables through alfredo sauce and piling it into my mouth.

"Spencer told me you're studying for your GED- how's that going?" She asks. Suddenly feeling like I'm on the spot, I swallow as quickly as I can and tell her, "I like the alone time. Plus, I think I want to teach, so self- instruction is good practice."

I don't think I could have come up with a lamer response if I'd tried. I guess I'm just naturally lame, I don't even need to try. "I miss my friends, though." I say, which isn't bull shit. I know that my falling out with them was my own doing, but I still can't help but feel the weight of the unfairness of the entire ordeal: I could have really used them when my life felt like everything was happening at once, and I guess that's another reason why I love Spencer so much.

"When are you going to take the test?" She inquires, sipping at the glass of wine she'd poured herself, lipstick smudging onto the rim.

"May, when everyone else graduates. I won't even be behind." I smile at my food, scraping all the sauce back towards the pasta.

"Do you know where you're going to school?"

"Colorado. Some people love the beach, I love the mountains. I found that out when we went to Ireland." I clarify, wiping the confused look off her face begging the question: _where have you even _seen _a mountain? _I guess it mostly stems from how standing at the peak after a long climb makes you feel so small, yet so big at the same time. You're closer to the sky, you're breathing less oxygen, but it's making you stronger.

Spencer looks at me, trying to fight the sadness off of her face. It's apparent that this is the first time she's thought about the inevitability of us parting ways. All the muscles that were making her smile drooped down on her face, and she started a staring contest with her unfinished chicken breast.

The chicken won, however, because her mother reclaimed her attention. "And since you're not going to UPenn," She says with the tiniest hint of resentment in her voice, "Where _are _you going to go?"

I can see her fighting down a snarky remark, but she succeeds, because what comes out is, "Penn State."

"Of course, you're virtually guaranteed admission." Spencer disagrees, but doesn't say so. Her brief stay in Radley has messed up her portfolio a bit, or she'd be a shoe in for even the most

exclusive schools. Her attendance was hurting there for a while, but her grades weren't impacted in the slightest. And with her test scores, _damn. _

I wish I had brains like she does, so I wouldn't have to worry about this like I do.

But I don't, and it's almost hard to enjoy the dinner with the nagging feeling that I should be studying, learning all the new skills I'm supposed to pick up in the next three months. If I can do this successfully, I should have no problem as a teacher. I tell myself this, and it feels like reassurance.

As we finish off the last of our food, I remove myself from the situation to retrieve dessert. I haven't been this hungry in a while, and I plan to take advantage of it. I'm tired of all my bones jutting out at weird angles, of my wrists looking thin and frail.

I have to open up quite a few of the cabinets before I find the little ice cream dishes- white glass with blue flowers painted on them. The ice cream puts up a bit of a fight when I try to scoop it out, tiny chunks hitting the air, so I just nuke the spoon to soften it up. A liberal dose of the nuts into each bowl, and I have to balance one on the underbelly of my wrist to make it in one trip.

We spoon the stuff into our faces in silence, succumbing to the true appeal of the food, unwilling to pace ourselves or bother to talk between mouthfuls. Her mother stands to clear the table before I have the chance, and we both thank one another at the same time Spencer thanks us, which makes us all laugh.

When I grab Elisabeth and head back to the barn, Spencer follows us with the play pen rolling through the kitchen, then lifted up over the grass.

Though her mother is home to be suspicious, she doesn't return to the main house.


	27. Chapter 27

She wakes up with the sun, and without her, the bed loses its appeal. I abandon the warm sheets and wrap myself in a coat- one she'd given me from when she was younger. When we draw the curtains, the day offers its minimal light, broken by the cloud descended upon us.

"Go back to sleep, love." She whispers, buttoning up her shirt as she slides her feet into her shoes. "It's still early." She walks over to me and kisses me on the head, hand lingering on my cheek.

"I'm not tired. Can I drive you to school?" I ask, pulling my clogs from the corner and wiggling my toes into them. "I won't sleep, anyway."

"If you want to, sure. I'd like that." She offers her hand to lift me up and off the mattress, and I have to gather my energy to lift myself up, even with her help.

"Do we have time to swing through McDonalds?" I ask, pulling my phone off its charger and dropping it into a side pocket. She tugs at the watch on her wrist.

"I think so." She smiles at me, and slings her school bag over her shoulder. "Are you ready?" She asks as she leans over Elisabeth's crib and lifts her out slowly, rousing her from her sleep.

I scan the room for anything I might have forgotten, that I can't live without for the next hour or so. My search comes up empty, so I nod. "Let's get out of here." She takes my hand in hers and even now, it makes my head feel lighter, like it's filled with helium.

We wade through the sea of dewy grass, droplets leaping to our ankles. The smell wafting up from the earth fills my nose. I open the back door quietly, sneaking into the still house, though there's no one here to disturb save for the silence itself. Her wet shoes squeak as she wipes them down on the door mat just outside the French doors. She takes her books and binders set on the counter and shoves them into her bag, and they strain the sides, seams stretching. "You need a bigger bag." I observe, poking at the side.

"I like this one." She returns, hugging it closer to her body.

I chuckle at her as she hands me my daughter. "If you say so."

We leave the house as still as we'd found it, maybe stiller. I'm glad we didn't break the still, just pushed it around a little. She takes my hand again, like she just can't get enough of being near me, and leads me out to my car. I climb into the passenger side, since driving is no longer on the top of my list of hobbies, and feeling the cold leather steal heat from my skin. I listen to the steady thump- thump- thump of her windshield wipers as she waits for her car to warm up, drawing idle circles on the back of my hand with her thumb.

Finally, after what seems like forever, she shifts the car into reverse and backs out of the driveway. Just like that, we're on our way and I'm that much closer to having to watch her leave the car and go away to face the day without me. I make myself a silent promise not to sit in the lot and wait for her, no matter how little else I have to do.

I really am behind on my studying. It's going to suck, sitting alone all day while I memorize equations and change diapers. But I really do enjoy being around Elisabeth, even though she's too young to really be good company. I can't help but feel like Spencer's absence is going to mess with my day at least a little bit, and this upsets me. Shouldn't I be able to decide how my own day goes?

With this, I decide that it really should be under my own jurisdiction, and I challenge myself to a good, enjoyable day in her absence. The headlights of the car in front of us reflect off of the water on the asphalt, shimmering with life. "What are you hungry for?"

"Oatmeal, probably. They don't have much that's not loaded with mechanically rendered meat product." She laughs at me, and Elisabeth coos from the background.

"Suit yourself. I think I'll go for a McGriddle." I make disgusted noises and she smiles at me, warmth spreading across her face. "You know I love you, right?"

"Wait, you've never said that before! This is brand new information." I exclaim, and she lets go of my hand to slap it.

"Oh, hush. I know you love me, too." She rests her hand on the back of my neck and runs her fingers through my hair. I feel electricity buzzing on the site, racing through my veins.

"I do. I really do." I rest my own hand on top of hers.

This just makes her laugh at me more. "You're in a good mood this morning." I remark. She reclaims her hand and rests it on the steering wheel.

"You're just cute."

"You know I hate that word."

"Whatever." She says, turning into the McDonalds parking lot as I curse the fact that it's so close to her house. I reluctantly leave the heat of the car, feeling the cold air outside assault me as I set both feet in the real world, which has no heaters, unless you count the sun. I pull the jacket tight around my body, shoulders raised, as I wait for her to come around from the other side of the car. I pull Elisabeth from the back seat and balance her on my hip.

She takes my extended free hand as I let the jacket fly open in the wind. She opens the door for us, letting me enter first.

I'm blanketed by warm air again, along with the smell of breakfast syrup and bacon. Ew. Bacon.

She orders for me, after checking that I still want an oatmeal, and we take a seat on the barstools facing out the window, and I move Liz over to my lap to steady her.

"It's weird." I say, breaking the silence she couldn't avoid. I know she must be thinking the same thing, trying to talk herself out of it. "Even when it's just the two of us, it isn't just the two of us."

She looks at me like I've just told her that I see the ghost in the corner that no one else believes is there. "I love Liz." She says, sweeping the look back and out of my sight. "She's like a little mini you."

"I know. Weird." I repeat. They call our number at the counter, and she gets up to go fetch our food before I can even move. I stick my finger in Elisabeth's slobbery mouth, because she's starting to fuss, and I don't want to go back out to the car to take care of her yet. This seems to placate her, and she occupies herself with gnawing with all she has.

I watch Spencer returning with the tray of food, wisps of steam rising off of her sandwich, wrapped in yellow paper. Her cargo green parka extends to her thighs, revealing black leggings that fit like skin. I watch the curve of her thighs, the silhouette of her muscles peeking through. Framing her neck is a thick layer of Sherpa lining, and two leather buckle straps bounce with each steps she takes. The damn thing probably cost six hundred dollars, and she looks like a knockout.

As she sets the food on onto the counter, I comment, "You're turning leggings into a dirty secret."

She laughs and turns around, hoisting up her parka to her waist. "How does it look from the back?" She peeks over her shoulder at her own backside, and smiles at me.

I shove her arm. "Sit down." I instruct, and she salutes me sarcastically, but obliges and unwraps her sandwich, the aroma filling the space around us. "How can you eat that?" I ask, poking at it with the black plastic spoon that was set on the lid of my oatmeal. "It's just dripping with calories."

She takes a bite, chews quickly, holds up a finger as she swallows, and says, "Delicious. You don't know what you're talking about."

I pop the lid of my food off like a champagne cork, depriving Liz of her temporary pacifier as I wriggle my finger out of her mouth, since this is a two handed operation. I scan the oatmeal before gathering together the perfect bite and holding it up for her to try.

She swallows her own food and takes the bite. "Animal food." She says definitively, pointing at the container. "I'm kidding, it's really good." She drops the spoon and redirects her attention to her own food.

We're only there for twenty minutes, and every step taken towards the door comes too soon. Liz squirms when the cold hits her, and I hurry to return her to her car seat and shut the door to shield her from the wind.

"I wish you didn't have to go to school." I say as I slide back into the passenger side.

"Me, too." She says, wrinkling her nose at me.

"You should skip today."

"I wish. I have a calc test." She says, and leans over to kiss my head. "Now let's go."

She keys the ignition, backing out of the lot. "What are we going to do when you get home?"

"I might take the leggings off." She teases, and I shove her again. "Okay, okay. I'll pop popcorn and we'll watch a movie. Does that sound good?"

"Sounds great." I nod, reaching out to fiddle with the radio controls, though I doubt I'd find anything I like. I think about the way she looked at me when I pointed out how odd it is now that I have a child, the way all of those emotions flashed across my face like they were frames in a video. She looked at me and froze, like maybe she wished it wasn't true. Like maybe it _did _change things.

We can laugh and joke and pretend like we don't have any issues, but you can only lie to yourself for so long. I remember the drive I took on the way to her house, and even the entire month prior, when I was alone for the first time since I was fourteen years old. Amazing how accustomed to something you can become in only four years, how lost you feel when everything changes. Each time I stopped for gas, or snacks, or to go to the bathroom, I'd sit in my car before I got back on the highway and just watch people. I remember being so jealous of the happy couples, with their handholding and laughing, sometimes I even managed to be jealous of the unhappy ones. At least they were together, you know? Now that I'm with Spencer again, or at least I _think _I'm _with _her, it feels like something that's going to be taken away from me again. And I have to walk on sheets of broken glass to keep it up.

The radio station threatens to settle on static, the antenna wavering in the wind outside.

"Is this what you wanted?" I ask her, a simple, exploratory question. She shoots me a quizzical look and returns her eyes to the road.

"Honestly? Yes. This is exactly what I wanted. I love being with you."

My head feels like a hurricane, she sounds like she's speaking heaven. "Sometimes I feel like I'm dragging you somewhere you don't want to be."

"No, you can't do that. That's me- territory." She says, reasserting her control over her own emotions, mostly to herself. "Honestly, Aria. You'd think that you don't even want to be here." She chastises, pursing her lips together.

I laugh, "No. That's _not _it." I tell her, resting my hand on her wrist. "I'm just worried that I may be sucking you back into a relationship that I _know_ has hurt you. And I don't want to hurt you, ever again."

"That's an unrealistic goal to shoot for. Of course you'll hurt me. And of course I'll hurt you. That's how things go. You don't stop hurting someone just because you love them. Love doesn't grant immunity, love is what makes it worthwhile."

"I will do everything I can to keep you from getting hurt." I try again, more careful with my words. "It's just sometimes I feel like the only way I can do that is to keep you away from me."

She scoffs at me. "First, stop worrying about hurting me. I can handle my own emotions. If you're being an asshole, I'll let you know, but don't feel like you need to tiptoe around me to compensate for last year." The way she says _last year_ makes my skin crawl. "And don't talk about keeping me away from you. At least don't talk about it like I'm not involved in the decision."

And that settles that. She turns in to the school parking lot, telling me she loves me and that I should have a good day. A quick kiss on my cheek and all the cold comes flooding in as she leaves the car. I pull out of the lot and head back to her house, smiling all the way.


	28. Chapter 28

When I get home, I lower Elisabeth into her crib and kick off my shoes, climbing into bed. Even now, it feels strange calling this place home, like it's some strange privilege enacted on me and I'm still getting used to it.

The entire building is warm and cozy, and I keep my socks and sweatpants on, taking all the warmth they have to offer. The room seems smaller without Spencer, like it's a build your own walls kind of deal and they shrink and expand according to who they have to house.

Watching the trees outside sway in the wind, partially obscured by the fog, I hold my bones in place and finally, I feel still. Tired, Liz has gone directly to sleep, though when she wakes up, I'll need to feed her. I watch the naked branches sway like dancers, lifting the shadows up and across the room. The streetlights offer orange luminescence, shooting down from the lamp head in a cone and lighting up all of the tiny rain drops falling through its expanse. It looks like a Christmas tree, falling but still all the same.

The entire world is gray, as though it's still asleep. As I sink deeper into the blankets, I watch it breathe. I think of all the little bacteria squirming on the sidewalk, worms sneaking out of their hiding spots beneath the earth to wriggle across to the other side, begging the sky to be merciful, to keep the rain coming long enough for them to complete their journey. The entire thing is pretty sad, really, but it's nothing to cry about, especially since the entire fucking state of Pennsylvania has already got that covered.

Once again, I sink into my favorite place, the halfway between awake and asleep. The kind of rest that is never particularly restful, but enjoyable all the same. I slip in and out of dreams, between sensible thought and a world free of reason.

I don't know how long it's been, but I wake up to silence. My entire body stills, begging for any kind of external movement.

There is none, and my heart sinks into my stomach, acid gnawing at the muscle as it goes into panic mode, and adrenaline shoots through my veins like a gunfire. "Elisabeth?" I don't know how I can tell without really knowing. I guess you could chalk it up to mother's instinct, I think to myself. Still, I can't seem to move any faster than slow motion. I can feel my bones rub at each joint, all the ligaments dissipating into thin air. The streetlights have gone out, and the room is dark as twilight. "Baby, are you asleep?" I ask, my voice quivering.

My footsteps resonate through the entire building as I take the steps towards her crib, just across the room. I can feel them echo through my bones, reflected back up through the hardwood, cold and lifeless.

"Liz?" I say, one final time as I peer into her crib.

She is still, and the color of the sky when the earth is caught between moods. No rain, yet no shine.

Not my friendly and faithful gray, nothing so comforting.

She is dead, and I do not touch her.


	29. Chapter 29

**Spencer**

I stand behind the front doors of the school waiting for her for half an hour. I try not to be angry- she drove me, shouldn't she be coming to get me? I fight off the cold as it seeps through the glass windows I lean against, clutching the strap on my bag as I watch the scene outside the building die down.

I breathe onto the pane, breath condensing like dew drops collecting in the ground. It frames my face, shoots warmth back onto my face. My feet start to lose sensation, since I've been standing for so long, blood flow trickling in and out slowly.

"Are you waiting for someone?" A familiar voice behind me asks. I turn around and meet Caleb's eyes, and my mind rushes back to the day I called him, when Aria went missing and I needed him to track down her phone, how helpful he was to me.

"I'm-" I launch into some excuse, but catch myself. I'm not too proud to accept help from a friend. "I was, but I don't think they're coming." I let my hand fall from its grip on my bag, loosening my muscles.

"Do you want a ride?" He asks, running his fingers through his hair as he approaches me.

I sigh, "That's be great. Thank you." He holds the door open for me, and follows me out. The air swallows me like a pill, enveloping me and I fold in on myself, seeking the stored warmth my coat had collected in the lobby.

"You know, Hanna really misses you." He says, and I almost regret accepting his offer. She'd been so far off from my mind that it almost surprises me.

"I miss her too." I say, which is true. "I didn't know she still wanted to be around me."

"I know you guys had a falling out. But she does." He holds the passenger side door open for me.

"You shouldn't be in the middle of this." I say, more apologetic than accusatory. The cold seats have no warmth to offer, but when he turns on the heater, my eyes water and I lean forward in my seat to be closer to the source.

He backs out of the spot, the parking lot mostly empty. I hear the splashing of water beneath his tires, hitting the underbelly of the truck. "It's no problem, honestly." He says, peeking into his rear view mirror.

I feel like I need to correct him, but I push the impulse down and agree with him, "Okay."

He tells me I can choose the music, and I feel like I've been put on the spot, despite how silly it seems. I switch the station to something neutral- number two on his default controls.

"I have to ask- how have you been these past few months? I haven't seen you around much."

Damn. I hate questions like that, you have to know there's no right answer. I offer him the spark-notes version of my story. "Been working extra hard on school. I want to get into a really good school, and it's ruining my social life." I force a laugh.

"Well, I wish you nothing but the best." He says. I catch something strange in his voice. Is that a hint of regret?

"What about you and Hanna? Where are you going?" He gives me that speak- of- the devil look and opens his mouth to speak. Well, I pinpointed the regret on his face. It has very little to do with me.

"She's going to Berkeley. I don't know where I'm going yet." The way he words this crafts it into his biggest, heaviest secret, which it may well be. I listen to the thump of the wipers as he's silent.

"Oh, well, I hope everything goes well for you both. I'm glad you're happy together." I say, and I listen the radio announcer switch between songs.

I shake my head. "I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"It just got… sad. I don't like dumping sad stuff on people."

"It's okay. Don't worry." He replies.

"Thanks for the ride." I say prematurely as he turns the corner onto my block, hitting a puddle of rain collected and sitting stagnant. He nods and makes confirmation noises as he pulls into my driveway.

"I'll see you around, Spencer. Have a good day." He tells me, and I return his wishes as I pace over to the door, ducking my head to shelter my face from the falling rain as it polka- dots my parka.

When I reach the front porch, he backs out of the driveway and leaves me to combat the silence on my own. I listen to the harmony of the pitter pat of the rain, and the dripping water falling off of the roof drain. I stand with my toes turned inward, watching the life in front of me, pass by.

What little protection the porch roof has to offer stands no chance against the cold, though I'm almost tired of complaining about it. Goosebumps stand up on my skin like tiny hills. The tiny droplets of water suspended in each breath I exhale blend into the air, heavier like the sea. I watch my reflection in the glass window. My hair is frizzy, inflated by the rain. My legs are skinny, fit, and the jacket angling out makes them look even thinner. I'm wearing Aria's gray tee shirt- slightly too small. You notice these things before you notice the sadness clawing at my face.

Since Aria didn't come to get me, I assume she's asleep, and when I finally dig my keys out of my pocket and open up the front door, I don't leave the main house to go looking for her. She's probably been studying all day, earning the rest she's indulging in. I decide to let her be, and sink into the couch as I flip through TV channels haphazardly, just looking for some sort of background noise so I don't feel so alone.

I mean, I'm not alone. Not really.

And I shouldn't be pouting. It was really nice of Caleb to drive me home, even if he might have only done it to increase the odds of me going back to Hanna. I'm not angry at her, I never really was. It's just that old habits die hard, and once you've fallen out with someone, it's hard to get back in to being around them. I guess I never had the energy to be mad at her. Even now, I still feel the ghost of that horrible and painful fatigue that resided in my bones through those months. Just tired, and not the kind that can simply be cured by sleep. It's the kind of tired that feels more like a parasite, a bug that sits on your back and sucks out all of your energy while you sleep. So maybe sleeping made it worse.

Even the people on the screen seem to feel the weight on my shoulders, as if it were a real and tangible thing. I, however, know that it's not. Still, I can't seem to shake it off. It has quite the death grip, and not even I am strong enough to knock something like that off.

Is it still called depression when it was triggered by some awful event? No, I don't think so. I think it's just a regular stress reaction. I am not depressed, not mentally ill. There is nothing wrong with me.

I purse my lips together, gnawing on the soft pink skin.

Even the sun cannot conquer the dreariness of this day. This comforts me as I allow myself to go catatonic, sinking between the sofa cushions. It's one of those days where each movement feels like dragging your limbs through jell- o, so I finally just give up on movement altogether.

I trace the veins inside my wrists with lazy eyes. Their innocence is my virtue, I have not tainted them as Aria has. And despite everything, I cannot help feeling superior. My eyelids droop and I cannot keep them perched open, so I sink into a sleep without fully realizing it, still in my stiff parka and my rain boots.

I wake up to find the sun has given up, leaving to sleep beneath the horizon. I guess I just have supremely bad timing, the sun and I are out of sync. Either way, it's still unsettlingly quiet. Aria should be up by now, I think to myself as I turn around to check the oven clock, removing my body from the warm couch as I do so. It's a quarter till eight, I was asleep for three hours.

I lifted my reluctant bones from the couch entirely, arms snaking around my torso as I asserted my surroundings. I recalled my dreams that had slid in and out of my conscious mind, how they had blurred the lines between reality and imagination. I imagine her sleeping like this all day, and I think of how much I envy her, since I was enduring school. Work, people, bad food. Not my favorite thing.

I leave the main house, the street lights even more prominent in the dark. I tiptoe across the grass, though I'm not sure what it is I'm afraid to disturb. I'm somehow more tired than I was when I got home, maybe the little bug is back.

The door is not locked, and I slide in without a sound. Even the echoing of my footsteps resonates silently, as I step out of my boots to cross the house in socked feet. More than anything, right now I want to crawl into bed with her and sleep until morning. I've lost a few hours of sleep on homework, but today I have none, fortunately. I intend to catch up, all while in the company of my favorite person on the planet.

"Aria?" I call, the noise feeling alien. There's no response. The blood pounding in my ears starts to echo with each footstep I take, as the void take me in its arms.

"Aria?" I call out, my voice bordering a yell. But the nervousness has not sunk its in claws in yet, and I still sound confident. As I round the corner and peer into Liz's crib hugging the wall, what I see sends me careening backwards, and my ass hits the ground before I even realize I'm falling.

The next time I call out her name, I can't hear my own voice. I regain my feet hurriedly, slipping across the hardwood as I fight for my balance. I run into the bathroom, driven by some internal demon, beyond my own comprehension. Something so unlike what I know to be pain fills all the empty parts of me, dulls me, and I feel my head swelling with it.

What I see when I round that last bend ends this chapter in my life, and keeps me from turning to the next page for a long while.

I call out her name one last time, and sink to the floor beside her.

**End of Book One.**


	30. Chapter 1: Derailed

It was cold and wet outside and the snow had come again. March in Pennsylvania, you're lucky to see the ground. The sky hung lower than normal, gray and heavy like water. It spanned for as far as I could see, there was no tangible ending.

The wind had blown my pea coat so that it flapped behind my body, and I thought about how much I hated the smell of snow.

Even though I didn't.

I snaked my arms around my waist to reclaim warmth and shifted my weight on my stiff feet. God, I was tired of thinking about the weather. It was just a way to make small talk with myself, and really, I thought I was above that.

They'd dug two holes in the earth, dirt piled in haphazard mounds to their sides, one much smaller than the other. Very macabre.

I didn't get a guest list. I had no idea who'd be attending, so when he snuck up behind me, I can't say that surprised was really the fitting word, though it did kind of catch me off guard. It didn't take much to do that. Not these days.

"Spencer?" He called, nearing with each syllable. I whipped around, the wind seizing this opportunity to lift the tail of my coat again. I almost felt like I was in the middle of an action scene. But if I was, I would have darted.

And I didn't. "Ezra?" I said, entirely unsuccessful in keeping the accusation out of my voice. I don't even think I was mad at him. I was just mad.

He did not offer any consolations, and neither did I. They seemed frivolous. We were assuredly both feeling the same bone wracking complex of chemicals sitting stagnant in our veins. Something that came together to look a lot like grief.

It's really hard to make conversation at a funeral, I thought to myself, ducking his gaze with something you could charitably call mock composure.

I was almost waiting for him to make a joke, just to break the ice. God, there had to have been something wrong with me. Maybe this entire thing was becoming so traumatic that my brain was already beginning to block out the memories, already beginning to shut down. I hoped that wasn't true because I at least wanted to be able to keep the memories of the burial.

A song pushed to the forefront of my mind, Bright Eyes. _I never really dreamed of heaven much till they put him in the ground._

My heart cringed and I shrank away from him again, and of course, it didn't go unnoticed.

"You hanging in there?" He asked, the pained expression on his face making it apparent that he knew what a dumb question it was. I nodded and reciprocated, "And you?"

He laughed nervously in spite of himself, running his fingers through his hair.

"Spencer?" Came a second voice, and I turned to face it dead on. Ezra looked like he wanted to take this opportunity to slip out of the scene, but he stayed put.

"Tracy?" I said. God, it was happening again. I hoped he would be an easier conversation than Ezra.

"This has been driving me mental for months." He said, kicking the snow beneath him. It sprayed my boots. He didn't scare me with his melodrama, I suppose I had already filled my capacity for nervous emotion. I was such a wreck, I should have been laughing ironically at myself with Ezra. "I need to tell you something.""

"I'm listening." I gave him the green light and lifted my eyes to his muddy brown ones and the heavy bags beneath them tinted the color of fresh bruises.

There was little fluidity to his movements as he tried to sway in front of me to pierce the awkward. "Aria was driving the car that night." He spat out, heaving a breath full of the air between us.

"Wait. What?" I froze my muscles stiffening as with rigor mortis.

"With Stella. She was driving the car," He paused, maybe because he needed it, and maybe for dramatic effect.

What did that change? God, they were both _dead. _"So what?"

"So she lied to you." He told me, and I uncrossed my arms from across my chest. My hair flew into my face and flapped, and I shoved it out of the way.

"Did you even know her?" I spat, throwing my weight over to my left foot, hand resting on my hip. I was racking up excess energy, and the only other release would be just to dart right now. But I don't. He mirrors my movement and the snow crunches beneath his feet, the only offering the earth has to the conversation.

"Yes, I did. And I listened to her when she talked, too."

"She lied a lot, Tracy. Just ask Ezra."

We turned to Ezra and he scratched his hairline and furrowed his eyebrows as he nodded. I fought the urge to laugh.

"Spencer, stop. Just listen to me. She tried to _kill herself._" He breathes, such conviction in his tone that every defense mechanism I had dropped down and I peered up to meet his eyes.

I pressed my lips together and clutched my thumbs inside of my fists, the bitter cold stinging my extremities. "Twice."

"Yeah, but it took her three tries." He made a shooing motion with his wrist, sweeping the explicit images out of his mind. He talked about it like it was a business matter, like we were eating up his time. But I saw the glassiness in his eyes, how they looked like they could catch dust out of the air.

"She killed Stella." He looked at me, waiting for it to sink in.

My heart shrank and cowered, but I kept up my façade. "I understand. Thank you for informing me." I said, slowly and carefully. He nodded at me, did a two- fingered salute, and walked off, face still as stone, save for the gnawing of his teeth I could see through his cheek.

Ezra waited for me to offer an explanation, but I hardly had one for myself.

"There's a lot I don't know about her." He observed, breathing through the side of his mouth.

"You and I are in the same boat. But that's Tracy Radford. It's my understanding that he is the root of all evil."

I became afraid that he didn't catch the attempt at a joke, and glanced up to scan his eyes. "I know you're kidding. Mostly. But you're still pretty bitter. And that's why you're making so many jokes."

His words made me feel naked. My first instinct was to shrink away from him, but I held my muscles still, my breath billowing around my face in a misty cloud.

That was when they started the actual burial. I felt like I was in line to bungee jump, or get on a rollercoaster, or jump out of a plane. Something that had terrified me for years, and every other time I had tried I'd chickened out at the last minute. My stomach twisted into a knot the size of a grape, and my heart punched me in the throat as he and I crunched virgin snow on our way over.

Right at the end of winter, all the ground was hard like rock. I wondered how long it took them to dig up all that packed earth.

Then, I wondered how unaffected they were when they did it. Do people who dig graves think about the people that are actually going six feet under, spin little tales to keep themselves going? I think that I would. Do they ever just stop thinking about it, turn it all into mechanics?

Earthy smells assaulted my nostrils, and I tried to breathe through my nose because I knew there was more filtration that way. The smell was overwhelming, disgusting, and it made me cringe.

A couple people had approached me inside, where there were little ceramic eggs painted with pastels sitting in wicker baskets, even though Easter was a month away. Apparently there was a hierarchy to missing her. I was second only to her parents. They offered me their consolations, and when I gave them mine, they shrugged them off. Apparently, grief does run in gradients. Now, I stand by his side, which pretty much amounts to standing alone. It's not as if he's going to talk to me, or hug me or anything.

I kept my body still and tried to ignore the way that even steady breaths present themselves as a feat. Even Mother Nature was against me, because the whistling wind blew in my face, drying my eyes. When it shifted and pushed my back, tears flooded, and I pawed them out of my eyes with the back of my thumb.

They started up the machine, suspending the coffin in air, and every part of me tightened. I felt like an aluminum can being crushed down, my spine corrugating. The orange straps looped around the deep mahogany looked so _normal_, like they might be used for any number of things. Holding a sofa onto a truck bed. Strapping a car's tires to a tow truck. Anything, really. I stared at the silver linings of the clouds above us.

The machine sounded like the hum of a fridge when I toned it out just right. All the noise in my head just flatlined, and all I could hear was my breath quivering.

My hand clutched onto his wrist, knuckles fading to white. He made no attempt to remove it, but he might have just doubted his actual ability. I had a pretty good death grip. It wasn't until the machine fell silent that I let go, blood flowing back into my fingers gradually, and my hand felt like static. I imagined that his did, too, and I imagined that his stomach also felt like it'd been turned inside out, and that the acid was eating away at his insides.

But I knew the chances of this were slim. It wasn't like my grabbing his hand sent impulses through his skin and to his brain, we were not on the same wavelength. Still, I humored myself with the thoughts. The way I knew she had touched him, how her skin still lingered on him, almost made me feel like I was touching _her._ Logically, the same was true about my own skin. But still, it externalized it. Reminded me that she was something outside of me.

When the wind shifted and tried to carry me up and out of the scene, I leaned in to him.

People cried and held hands and tossed handfuls of dirt. Emily, Hanna, and Caleb clustered together, but they didn't approach me, nor I to them. The way they all looked at each other, I knew they hadn't had a clue. This was all a surprise, their wide eyes and open mouths betrayed them.

I had definitely strayed from the group. I think that's when you know- when you come to your mutual best friend's funeral as separate parties. My brain kept trying to make jokes about the entire thing, but when Elisabeth's body was loaded onto the machine, I had to fight just to keep my lunch down. Sure, I was doing better than some, face buried in collars and hands gripping fistfuls of black fabric. There were real tears falling down faces, and I was just turning myself catatonic.

I felt the snow careening down from the sky and settling on my hair, on my eyelashes. I focused on the way it felt on my flushed skin, steam rising to the sky and away from me. The burning leaving my body.

I was glad I'd eaten despite my protesting nerves. Usually I anticipate things much worse than they actually turn out to be, and I worry myself sick beforehand. But honestly, nothing held precedent to this. I was just pretending it didn't exist, internalizing it. I knew, though, that I wouldn't be eating for a while. I watched Ezra's face curl up as I thought about the fact I'd never even _been _to a real funeral before. My grandma had died when I was twelve, but my parents couldn't take the time off work to drive out to Virginia. So there I was, seventeen years old and this was the first time I'd ever seen such a condensed flock of grievers. Sure, I knew sadness. I knew ripping yourself apart with guilt, tearing yourself down until all you are is your core. You in your purest state. Only anger and regret, then defeat. Sure, I knew grief.

But I didn't know sharing it. So that's why I hung onto it, though I was in the midst of a crowd of people who'd be willing to lend a shoulder for me to cry on. I held onto all of my tears, my arm on his as though it were glued there. Even when the wind swayed, I didn't.

I don't remember much of what happens after they lowered Elisabeth, up until the point where I pushed my way towards the chapel, around the corner, and into the bathroom. I wanted to throw those cheery fucking eggs, I wanted to see them shatter. As I passed them, I snagged one in my fist, readying my arm to chuck it against the window. But I didn't. I lowered my arm and held the egg in my palm, running my fingers over it. It was so dry that it stole moisture from my skin.

I set it down in the basket with the others, running my fingertips over the rest. I didn't feel the tears on my face until I saw them in the mirror. I ducked over the toilet and retched as I lost the lunch I'd been so grateful for. Tears mixed sweat and vomit, and my entire body felt hot and flush against the chill of the toilet, save for my fingertips, which felt cold and wet like ice. I gagged one last time, a strand of hair escaping my grip at the nape of my neck. I reached up to flush it, and closed the lid, moving to sit with my head in my hands. I looked at the cheap wooden stand painted white. It had a couple of copies of the same newspaper stacked on one shelf, dated about this time last year, along with a couple of tampons wrapped in paper scattered on top of them. There was even a tube of toothpaste and stick of deodorant, like someone was coming here often. The faucet was leaky, and in the silence I could hear the steady dripping, and it lulled me.

The door eased open, and I reached out to push it shut. "Occupied!" I cried out, and followed it quickly. "Just a minute." I heard a sigh on the other side of the door, and turned on the sink to splash my face with cold water, dabbing at my eyelashes and eyebrows with a paper towel when I was done.

I stood up, smoothed my dress down with sweaty palms, and pushed the door open with my head ducked. A warm, dry hand landed on my arm. "Are you okay?" I looked up to meet him, suddenly aware of how red my eyes must still be.

I just nodded.

"Who's taking you home?" He asked, concern bordering his voice.

"I'm walking." I said, almost indignantly.

"Where are your parents?"

"Working. I had to tell them I didn't want them here, so they wouldn't take the time off. They were insistent, but they figured it was my decision, so they let me go."

"Don't you have your license?" He asked.

"I do, but my mom's car is in the shop and she needed to borrow mine." Even though I told him the truth, I was afraid it would sound like a lie. I uncrossed my arms and let them hang at my sides, fingers curling up.

"Do you need a ride?" He asked, though he must have known it wasn't his place. The scorn I gave him made him visibly nervous, but he didn't retract his offer.

I thought about it, though I knew the real answer. It was more of a formality. "No, thanks."

I knew I was thirty degrees out, and so did he. We were both just out there. But my house was only a mile or so, and I liked the scenery. It was peaceful most days, but to be honest, I couldn't see myself paying it any attention that day.

"If you're sure." He said, and as I started towards the front door, he followed me.

There was something almost remorseful, something romantic about the way that the pink and orange light flooding over the horizon glimmered off of the snow, every facet reflecting it back to us. It was as if they were all saluting, paying their respects. My breath clung to the glass window I peered out of, cocooning my face. I didn't know what I was waiting for, other than that I just didn't want to walk there all by myself in the bitter cold.

I had readjusted to the heated air inside, and when I pushed the glass door open and was met with a full on gust of wind, it nearly gave me a whiplash, I ducked my head, trying to deflect the brunt of it. "Are you-" He looked at me, something in his eyes looked like it was shattered. Literally- just sprayed across the floor like glitter.

"Actually," I smiled, raising a single eyebrow sardonically, "I think I might have to take you up on that offer." I told him, though the thought still made me borderline uncomfortable. I thought that surely there'd be people who'd want to know why I was hitching a ride from my English teacher, but honestly, I was too tired to care. Maybe I should have.

Little snow dunes had been swept to the sides of the parking lot by the gusts washing through here, and the tiny flurries swirled in vortexes at our feet. I popped the passenger door, snow falling on my hands and chilling them even further. When I slid inside, it was still cold. I don't know what I expected. On the floor are a pair of shoes, some fast food wrappers, and a crumpled up magazine from a few weeks ago. He hopped in and keyed the ignition, the car roaring as it awoke from its sleep. He cranked up the heater, rubbing his arms.

"I'm sorry, Ezra." I said, because the silence was threatening to suffocate me. It didn't matter what I said at that point, I just needed to kick that blanket off. He turned to me and his boyish face slipped into a quizzical expression of doubt.

"What for?" He asked, peering out at the mirrors as he backed out of the spot.

"Everything. I… I should have been more careful. I knew better." I said, exposing myself with every syllable.

He brushed it off with a laugh, "It's not your fault. It's no one's fault." He turned on the radio to supplement background noise, and then, quieter, he said, "Some things just are."

I knew that. I pushed my feet further into the space they were in, in search of the heat source. My toes were just starting to thaw. Still, all the numbness felt good. I'd take any numbness I could get. At this point, it was a virtue. Even my fingers hinted purple around the knuckles, protesting.

She always hated the cold. However, towards the end, she came to resemble the cold. She was the very thing that sucked the warmth right out of your hands like a mug full of coffee that I'd been clutching in my shaking hands for too long.

I gnawed on a raw spot inside my cheek until I tasted the hints of blood. "It wasn't like that."

"That's still okay." He told me, flicking his windshield wipers on. I listened to the steady thump- thump- thump as I thought of a response.

"I sense you have questions." I said to him, burying my hands in my coat pockets, encountering a crumpled up piece of tissue and a couple of loose coins. The air from the heater was starting to burn my face, so I angled the vents downward.

"How long had this been going on?" He asked, settling after much consideration, heaving a sigh.

The words clawed their way out of my throat. "Since," I swallowed the lump in my throat, "Last August. 2011. A while, really."

His fingers raked his hair again, and he swung a left turn, eyes clinging to the road so he wouldn't have to look at me. "Why didn't I know about this?" He asked, I swear, I almost blurted out, _it's because you broke up with her._ But the tone in his voice stopped me. I heard the way he damned himself, and I knew it was a rhetorical question.

I don't know where my next words came from, because they scared me even as I spoke them. "Just be glad. What's done is done. Maybe you can forgive yourself this way."

"I don't think that's going to happen. And I don't think I'm going to forgive her either."

I was ready to comment, but he beat me to it. "You can only forgive for what has been done directly to you. And this never actively involved me."

"I'll never forgive her for what happened to her daughter." I said, so low and quiet I was surprised he even heard me. My cheeks burnt with numerous shade of apology, blushing away what could be seen as a social blunder.

"Can you tell me what happened?" He asked tentatively, like he was tiptoeing around landmines. I nodded, feeling the tears straining at my eyes.

"She did a lot of shit while she was pregnant. Drugs, she drank…" I couldn't help trailing off. "It's not good."

"So her baby was just…sick?" He asked, trying to piece it together.

"Yeah, and the thing was, she wasn't even addicted to the drugs. She was addicted to the self-destruction. Fuck," I caught my tongue as I cussed. I mean, he _was _my teacher. It was the dumbest thing, but I remember it crystal clear. "Did you get a look at her wrists? Her thighs?" I thought to myself as I said the words out loud, feeling them on a level separate to what he was hearing. The entire time she was just trying to kill herself. When she floored the gas that night, she thought the wall was going to take her, that she'd hit it so fast she'd fly into god's arms on the other side. But she took out Stella. It was her own daughter who was hit by the booze, the drugs, and the stress.

She was just really bad at suicide. Her aim was off. I hate myself for thinking of it in such a satirical way, but my heart is as bitter as the winds pushing at the car, and I'm a messy paint splatter of emotion.

"I know. I mean, I got that." He wheeled into my neighborhood, tires hinting at a skid, but regaining quickly. "I'm sorry, too, Spencer." He muttered, like he just wanted to get the words out on the table.

"You have nothing to be sorry about."

"I'm sorry about a lot of things."

I wanted out of that car, out of the conversation. His confession was too much. I leaned to the door, like I was ready to flee. He pulled into my driveway and I kicked the door again, but with the slant of my driveway, it hit me in the arm as I climbed out.

"I'll see you later, Spencer."

"Thanks for the ride, Mr. Fitz."


	31. Chapter 2: Derailed

When I walked into the house, I turned to the white noise of tonight's newscast and mug of hot cocoa to silence my head. The effort proved to be mostly futile, but I didn't really care. It felt like trying. I almost expected to fall asleep there, but I didn't even come close. I just sat there, staring off, my body so still perhaps to counter the racing speeds of my mind. In my imagination, I looked dead.

But my heart was still beating, so there was always that. I breathed in the deep scent of the leather pressed up to my face, sticking to my skin. I can still taste the sick of my stomach in my mouth, the way everything I held inside of me just ignited inside me like hexane inside a closed space. It wasn't like it was unreasonable to cry at a damn funeral, but I still felt like I ought to have kept it together better. Or at least remembered to lock the bathroom door. Sniffling and tearing up is one thing, but if you're hugging the toilet, that's different.

Really, it was all just sitting inside of me. The entire time I was just waiting for a good catalyst, and I should have known to be prepared for what might have come. I guess I just overestimated myself. Even so, I feel weak. I can be pinned down to the pavement by the cocktail of emotions, but as soon as I cry for help, it feels like losing.

I really wish I weren't raised so competitive. Don't go all Freudian on me, it's not the worst thing I could have ended up with. I mean, I'm going to get into a _great _school. Right, mom?

I almost thought about slamming down a couple of shots, that's what I would have done last year. But to be honest, it never did make me feel better. It just intensified everything I was trying to avoid, leaving my crying on the bathroom floor. It made me even more of a loser than I already felt like. I don't know how people even like booze anymore. It just doesn't fit. Even when you're just going out for fun it makes you messy and dirty and slutty.

And those are three adjectives I like to keep off of my name. It's totally dark outside before the kitchen light starts to get on my nerves and I vacate the warmth in the seat I had collected to turn it off. A vase of baby pink chrysanthemums is perched on the kitchen island, with a card poking out of the center, my name printed on the center.

I didn't know botany, but I knew symbolism. I didn't know who they were from, but I snatched them up, water toppling out the side, and flung the back door open. Again, I thought about chucking them. I was really in the mood to break something. But I didn't feel like explaining broken glass and wilted flowers in the snow to my parents, so I shut the door, drained the water, and dropped it into the trash.

The very last thing I needed was them doubting my mental clarity. There were so many parallels now from the last time I felt my brain dripping out of my ears, the way I got so sardonic about things and all the things that were important to me were disregarded. I felt off balance, but I was determined to keep my shit in one sock this time.

As the wise Yoda once said, there is no try. There is only do.

I yanked my hair into a ponytail, fingers ripping through perfectly crafted curls. Dressing up for funerals is the dumbest thing that people do, I think to myself as I send echoes pulsing through the house, feet hitting the wood steps, remembering the time I stumbled up here with her, our bodies turning into just fluidity and interdependence, water flying off of our skin and onto the wood. The entire fucking house was haunted now.

My black dress clung too tightly to my body, I wanted to rip it off. But I pulled that thought down by its ankles, dropping it gracefully to the bathroom floor. I started the water and turned the light off. I didn't have the energy to look myself in the eye, and I just knew I would get sucked in to staring at my reflection until I could see my eyes sinking in. I stepped beneath the pounding heat of the shower head and turned it up as hot as it will go, filling myself up. My body felt strange and foreign, and I pressed my forehead to the shower wall, water flying down my face, flowing in and out of the tears. I pulled my face down, in my hands, gripping my skull in my hands, my knees shaking.

There was nothing beautiful about death.

Nothing romantic about ripping your own soul to pieces, about latching on to people and pulling them down with you. I balled my fists and lifted them to slam into the tile, but they held suspended in the air like they were strung by a puppeteer.

I didn't see how anyone thought this was some artistic and eloquent shade of tragic, something to distinguish you from the rest of the crowd.

I looked for god in that pitch black shower stall, but I did not find him. No god would make the things I'd seen. I saw cocaine take three lives, demons tearing out like she was possessed. Something that metastasized and tore everyone down off of their pedestals. We were just that much closer to hell.

I sobbed silently, trying to discern whether I was more angry or devastated.

But god, she was so beautiful.

She was heavy with bits and pieces of the life she lived, and she left them lying around wherever she went, shedding them so she could feel the sun again. And maybe that meant she didn't know when to stop. She didn't know what was her own skin, what was the debris she was stripping herself of. She was looking so closely that she couldn't even see where the line was drawn.

And really, can you blame someone for being broken? Can you blame anything for being broken? I blamed myself for being broken, sure, but normal people probably didn't.

I sent the words _what if_ into exile within my head. I was using them as an excuse to torment myself, a reason to let my skin fold in like paper origami.

What I didn't know was how anyone got over anything, ever. It seemed like it was something that could cling so tightly to your bones that you couldn't shake it without breaking them and building yourself up again from the start. And honestly, I didn't have the means to do that, so I just tried to ignore it.

I listened to it hitting the walls like rain before I got so tired of just sitting there, like it was November again and I was all alone. Somehow, now, I don't feel that way. Not as much. I could feel her presence here, if only in my own imagination. I guess I could conjure up as much of her as I wanted because there was no reality to interfere with what I held to be true. And to be honest, that really scared me.

I slid into a towel, my silly, childish fears of the dark starting to leak in. But really, no one's afraid of the dark. We're all afraid of what lurks within it. I slid into a robe and restrained my hair, avoiding my own gaze in the mirror.

I didn't know how I could still love her for all of this. But I did, and it was making me feel sick to my stomach.

I slid into a pair of fuzzy socks, seeking false comforts to reassure my body, and crawled beneath my sheets.

Honestly, I was damn tired of pouting. It had only been a few weeks, but I was already fed up with my own lamentations. They were tiring, and there's only so much grieving you can even do in such a short period of time. So much grief. Wouldn't you think there'd be a quota? I told myself that there assuredly was, and that when I got up in the morning, I'd either feel better or make better. I knew I wasn't a victim, though I'd acted and felt as though I was one.

There had to be another chapter for me instead of just the last one, written over and over again. I repeated this to myself as a mantra, sinking deeper into the very sheets she'd been in. The very place where my own involvement in this had all started, when I knew it was bad but swore to myself I could handle it.

Cue the ocean tide of guilt washing over me. I tried to push it away, but decided just to ride it out. I knew it would lose its potency in a minute, so I sat there with my muscles tensed and waited to regain my composure.

I knew I couldn't keep blaming myself for the things that weren't my fault. I couldn't be the loser in this war I had waged on myself.

I might have been exhausted, but I felt like I could count on the sleep to chase it away. It was the best kind of sleep, I was detrimentally CCtired. And maybe tomorrow, I _would_ make myself a nice breakfast, and I'd save some for my parents, and maybe we'd all just sit down and eat together like they weren't out working all of the time, like I hadn't just lost my best and worst friend in the world. And maybe I could fry some bacon and get the smell of the funeral lilies out of my nose.


	32. Chapter 3: Derailed

I stayed in a drowsy state in my bed for an hour after I woke up, but I became restless and kicked the covers off. I paced to my closet and dug through, searching for something nice to wear. No black- I'd worn that color out plenty. I pulled a green cardigan and lifted my T shirt over my head, sliding on a bra and tried on three different shirts before I found one I liked. My hair was a mess from sleeping on it wet, so after I yanked on some jeans I straightened it, even drew on some makeup.

I didn't make breakfast, because it didn't even occur to me until I was out of the door and heading towards my car, which my mom had driven home late last night. I was thankful, because I was itching to go somewhere. I knew I was going to make myself eat later, but until then, I had places to be. My phone sat on my lap, window down, the cool air hit by the sun, snow banks glittering. I took a different route, just for a change in scenery.

It was nice to finally feel like I didn't look like shit, so I turned up the radio to the only station that wasn't on commercial. The music sucked, but it didn't really bother me.

My phone buzzed, and I swiped across the screen to answer it. Hanna.

"Hey, Hanna." I deadpanned.

"Hey, Spencer," She breathed, and I could just hear the emptiness of the room around her, see the sad candles burning. "Can you come over?"

I knew my line, "Is everything okay? Well, as close as it can be?"

She exhaled a long, quivering breath right into the receiver. "I just need you. I know that things have been-"

I cut her off, "I'm on my way."

She laughed with relief. "Thank you." I could feel the tears on her cheeks.

"I love you."

"I love you too, Spencer."

We sat on the line in silence for a few seconds, and the line went blank. I hung up, and turned the radio up.

As I drove past the downtown area, past the brew, past the grille, I saw a familiar car sitting parked, hugging the curb. And in the driver's seat, a still figure sat. The engine was dead, and the doors were all shut. No music played, it was entirely still.

It was Ezra's. I pulled my car to the curb to park right behind him, killing my engine and climbing out of the car. Slowly at first, like I was waiting for someone to rush over and stop me. But no one did, and I listened to the clang- clang- clang of my heels against the pavement as I approached the passenger window.

I knocked on the glass, trying not to look creepy, though I assuredly did. He jerked out of his stupor and made surprised eye contact, rubbing between his eyes with his hand. He reached to his driver's side controls and unlocked the car. I knew that was my cue to get in, but I almost felt like I shouldn't. I mean, Hanna was waiting for me. Really, though, I knew she could wait a few minutes. I was already hurrying to get there. I opened the door and sat down next to him. The air inside was as cold as outside, like he hadn't run the heater at all.

"Are you okay?" I asked, figuring there was really no right thing to say, so I might as well start somewhere.

He shook his head, caught himself, and nodded. "Thanks for asking, Spencer."

"Do you want me to leave?" I asked. What was that I heard in my voice? Was I afraid that he would refuse? Maybe, just maybe, I was.

"You probably should." He said, restarting the car, hands landing in the wheel like birds on a wire. The leather squeaked as I shifted my weight on top of it.

I reached over to open the door, holding my bag to my body. At that, I heard a click, and the door was locked. My mind raced back to the day Aria locked me in and I knew I ought to have gotten out. I should have fought for it, should have wandered back home in the rain.

"Don't go." He whispered, low and guttural. I might have been afraid if not for the raw vulnerability wracking his voice, stilling my soul.

"Okay." I said, and I sat back in the seat, my breaths the only thing we could hear. He was so quiet.

"You know, I really love her." He muttered, eyelids shut to hold back tears as he wiped his hands on his corduroys.

"I know. I did too." I said, lacing my fingers together so the gaps between them wouldn't feel so empty. "I do, too. And I'm sorry, Ezra. I know you did."

"I know you think it was your fault. But I know it wasn't. I don't know a lot of things, I have no idea what was happening in her life this entire time but I know you'd never do anything to hurt her." He said, hands shaking in his lap. "I know that."

"Ezra, you're scaring me." I breathed, my eyes roving the scene in front of me.

His lungs did some heavy lifting, each breath fought him. This fell under the category of takes one to know one, and I knew he had it bad. He was an amateur. "You can go, if you want." He unlocked the door and turned away from me. I didn't move.

"I understand." I said, my breath still. My hand reached over and landed on his. "I know."

I still hadn't met his eyes.

I could see him yelling internally at himself to get it together. He was a mess. Seeing a grown man cry is one of the worst things in the world. Even Ezra, especially Ezra. Even with his boyish face, he looked so invulnerable to me. Watching him sob almost had me in a state of disbelief.

"I should go now." I said, pushing the door open, and this time, he let me go.

I climbed back into my car, which was still retaining heat from before. I slid out of my coat and blasted the heater, breathing heavily.

My life was strange. The tires whined as I turned them away from the curb before I started up. I pulled out of there, and got back on route to Hanna's house.

Even when I sat there in that seat, I could feel that she had been there before, that she had kissed him and she had kissed me, and she had loved him and she had loved me. Maybe there was more to it. We loved the same person. It was as if, whenever we looked at each other, all we saw were little bits of her.

The driving went slower after I'd talked to him, like I was dragging it all behind me. Heaving it, like he had lurched his words out of his mouth then scrambled to scrape them back in, as if they'd rolled out of his mouth like an accordion folded list, spilling out. He was ashamed, but I knew better.

I knew that when something hit you that hard, you couldn't help but to fall over. And to him, it looked like I was standing, that it hadn't knocked me down. But to be honest, it's hard for something to push you down when you're already on the ground. I was just very functional. And yet, I knew that I had not hit rock bottom.

I pulled into Hanna's driveway and pulled my keys out of the ignition, dropping them in my bag. I sat with my hands on the wheel for a few moments, as if I was about to flee.

Then I climbed out, hitching the door open with my leg so it wouldn't slam back down on me. I tucked my hair behind my ears and rang her doorbell. It had been so long since I'd been at her house, and the little things that had changed made it all seem unreal. The way she'd gotten rid of the wicker rocking chair, the little welcome mat that was gone now. I scraped the soles of my shoes against the concrete, shifting my weight between feet.

Her mother opened the door. "Spencer." She smiled at me as she let me in, "Hanna's upstairs."

I could tell she was considering striking up small talk, but she decided not to, and I kicked off the heels and surmounted the steps, and rounded the corner to her room, knocking before I pushed the door open. Her stereo hummed quietly, and she pulled the door open. Her eyes were red and puffy, but she smiled at me. I pulled her into a hug, and she cried onto my shoulder. I imagined her tears seeping through to my skin, though I knew my sweater was too thick.

I loosened my grip on her, and she did too, but neither of us let go, "I'm glad you're here." She muttered, "And I'm sorry for everything."

"Me too. For both." I kissed her on top of her head, and she turned to pace back to her bed, falling onto it. The sheets rippled as she did, arms rigid by her sides. "For everything, Hanna."

"It wasn't your-"

"It was more my fault than you'd think." I told her, moving to sit down beside her, my hand resting on hers.

"I forgive you. I don't care what you did," She stated, "I forgive you."

What was it with these people and their forgiveness? Ezra, Hanna, even me. I guess death was no time to hold grudges, though logically, there was plenty to be angry about.

I stayed with her for a few more hours, until she was more stable. We didn't do much, just watched some TV and ate popcorn and felt like friends again. It was nice to feel like I had someone else to rely on.

I left a little bit after four. The sun still assaulted my eyes when I left, reflecting off of every facet of the snow and back at me with blinding ferocity. I wore my sun grin as I felt the stuff crunching beneath my feet, driving off as I had arrived. I was happy that Hanna and I were on good terms again, like I had one less thing to feel guilty about. That wasn't the only thing, of course. If you're only friends with someone to clear your conscious, that's kind of counterproductive. I really did like being around her. Someone else who understood me. Or, at least, was close.

I almost took a different route back to my house, because I was afraid to run into Ezra again. But I decided that was stupid, and I drove straight past it. When I came to the space, sitting in the sun as it had before, the car wasn't there. It wasn't empty, this was downtown Rosewood. Parking spaces didn't just sit empty. I stared at the car, trying to see into the tinted windows as if maybe, just maybe, he were still sitting there. As if he were a permanent fixture and the rest of the life in the area was just hovering around him.

But he wasn't. The car was empty, and I got honked at slowing down to try to see into it. I sped off, blasting the radio the rest of the way. I wished I'd brought some sunglasses, and I nearly gave myself a migraine by forgetting.

It seemed like the day had passed too quickly, slid out of my grasp when I wasn't paying attention. I thought about grabbing some coffee to just sit down and be still for a moment. I loved people watching- and so did Aria.

So that made a definite no on that one.

Not that I was disappointed, but I really expected to walk into an empty house. But my mother was sitting on the couch, sipping a steaming mug of tea and watching the Food Network.

"Oh, hi, sweetie." She said, standing up to hug me.

I sank deep into her arms, breathing in the scent of her sharp, expensive perfume that had smelled like her for as long as I could remember. Her wool sweater itched my neck when I rested my chin on her shoulder, and tears were flowing as if out of a faucet before I even knew why.

"Oh, Spencer," She soothed, holding me closer as I choked on my own grief. It was a known fact that as soon as you start crying about one thing you end up crying about every other thing going on in your life. I cried for Aria, for Ezra, for Hanna, for Emily, for Caleb. My knees started to go numb because I stood with them locked for so long that they lost circulation. I cried until I was still sobbing but my eyes went dry, and then I cried some more. It must have taken me twenty minutes to cry myself out.

It wasn't the longest my mom had seen me cry, but it was the oldest. How the fuck old was I? Sixteen? No, seventeen. It was winter. I don't know why it took me so long to feel seventeen. Maybe I just hung so hard onto the last thing we shared- our sixteenth year. And I didn't care if that was dumb. So I was seventeen, ready to move out in a few months, and I was crying my eyes dry onto my mother's shoulder.

And the best part? I didn't care. I had no one left that I felt like I needed to be strong for. There was no more feigning healing, I could really do it. I believed that. I didn't have to duct tape myself together so I'd look intact. I could really take the time to fix myself.

And I guess that was the best feeling I'd known in a while. That I had space. And if I fucked up, I could fix it. It was foreign, but it was welcome.

"Do you want me to make you some tea?" She asked, stroking my hair. I was ready to refuse, but I caught myself.

"Sure. That sounds great." I smiled, feeling the tears drying on my cheeks. She nodded at me and returned to the kitchen, her footsteps bare, which almost felt unnatural. Weren't clanging heels a part of every outfit, even at home? I sat with my legs crossed beneath my lap, pulling a blanket out from underneath me and spreading it across my lap. I picked up a book off of the coffee table, the dropped it back without cracking the spine, because my mother had brought me a steaming mug of green tea large enough to swim laps.

"Thank you." I took it from her, bring it to my mouth and dipping my upper lip to check the temperature. Hot, hot enough to steam, but not scalding. I took a sip, earthy flavor slipping across my tongue.

"Where did you get this tea?" I asked, sure it wasn't just Lipton.

"The mall. It's called _Honey Gold Green Tea." _She informed me, gulping from her own mug. "I think I'm going to have to go back and get more." She sat down beside me, her knees touching mine.

"Mom, thank you." I said, and she knew I wasn't talking about the tea.

"I love you sweetie." She kissed my head. "And I know what all of this has been doing to you. I can't say I understand, because I don't, but you've been handling it so well. I know you were in Radley, but I think you're the sanest one of all of us."


	33. Chapter 4: Derailed

I had decided to go out for coffee. Really, I liked to keep moving, keep busy, and I loved coffee. So I told my mother I was leaving and took off. I listened to a classical radio station- AM –because everything else was giving me a headache. Habitually, I was a fan of drip coffee, but I was feeling adventurous and daydreaming about what else I might want to try. It looked the same outside as it did yesterday, except the snowbanks were just a little shorter and the grounds a little wetter, since the sun had peeked out.

I passed the same spot, and by force of habit, I scanned for his face by the car.

And that time, I rationally knew he wasn't there. But it felt uncertain and unstable. It was Schrodinger's cat- until I checked and saw he wasn't there, he was. So I drove past, even though it was a little out of my way.

And I saw him.

Again, by force of habit, I looked for her face accompanying him. They were such a solid pair, I couldn't help it. Obviously, she wasn't there. I don't remember making the conscious decision, but something inside of me steered the car to the curb where he stood, wrapped in a pea coat and gray scarf, holding his phone to his face as he walked past a tree planted into the sidewalk.

I rolled down my passenger window, and he hung up the phone as soon as he saw me. "Get in." I said, summoning courage I didn't know I possessed. He slid his gloved hands into his pockets along with the phone, screen catching the sun and shooting into my eyes. I cringed.

He popped the door, and climbed in so slowly, waiting for me to change my mind. I held my ground. "I'm going for coffee. You're invited to come with me," I said. His lips were pulled into his mouth as he nodded steadily.

It was only another half mile or so, and I managed to slide into a great parking space right as the last occupant left. It was only a few spaces away from the main entrance to the shop, and he trailed behind as I walked. Not slowly, but cautiously. "Spencer, we're going to be seen together. It's a bad idea." He said surely, calling to me without stepping to catch up.

"No one's paying attention to us. I promise." He had his briefcase slung across his body, and I gestured at it, "Get out some papers so it looks like we're working. Just in case anybody does."

He nodded again. "Good thinking," He still didn't sound convinced, but he spoke confidently.

The bell on the door dinged when I pulled it open, and he followed me closely, his fingers brushing mine. The contact was so slight I questioned its legitimacy, but I felt the shadows on my hand, and it didn't matter whether it was real or not. I was going to imagine it that way. I know what you're thinking- if I had the door open, why would he need to put his hand on it, and if he did, couldn't he see where mine was and avoid it?

So yeah, it was a regular guy move, quickly planned, poorly executed. It played well with his boyish face, and had me endeared to him.

"What are you buying?" I asked, placeholder small talk.

"Americano," He replied, "Give me your order and you can go sit down."

"Extra-large drip, three sugars," I said, reaching into my pockets for the five I had stuffed there. His hand landed on my wrist, stopping me. "Don't worry about it."

I kept my eyes on his as I replaced the bill in my pocket, scanning for any sort of weakness. He held my gaze, and finally I turned on my heels and found us a little table in the light of the window. I rubbed my hands, trying to knead his touch off of them. As if that were rational in any way. I kept stealing glances at him, but he never looked back at me. Not until he walked back over, a paper cup in each hand.

"Thank you." I thanked him, reaching to take the large one from his hand. No contact.

He just nodded, and sat down across from me.

"So, what did you want to talk about?" He asked, as though he were waiting for me to flip out over not having an adequate answer to offer him.

"Pathological feelings of grief and inadequacy." I said, and he shot me a quizzical look. "No, that's the _other_ thing we have in common. I meant Aria." I made a switching motion with my hands, and smirked at him.

"Hilarious." He deadpanned, smirking back. I just shrugged, and took a tiny sip of the steaming coffee, and he mirrored my movements, and ran his fingers across the rim of his lid.

"Can I try yours?" I asked, drumming my own lid. He handed it to me, and I took a slow sip.

When I gave it back, he wiped the print of my lipstick off with his sleeve, looking at me, something between indignant and…was that a challenge? I ran my finger across my lips and pressed a cherry red fingerprint dead in the center of the white plastic. He laughed, and took it away from me, sipping a few more times, unable to decide what he wanted to say.

I pulled the lipstick out of my bag and reapplied it, smudging with my pinky finger. The coffee was making my hands hot so I set it down and laced my fingers together. "Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush." I let my forearms fall onto the table, crossing at the wrists. "Aria and I were together."

His eyebrows lift up, suspended on his face as I keep talking, "I don't know if you knew that…" I couldn't keep my gaze off the face he's making. "Oh, stop looking at me like that." I scorned back, and it relaxed into an amused grin.

"I don't have a problem with that, Spencer. I just didn't think you were the type." He caught himself, "Not the type to be with a girl. The type to be with Aria."

"Yeah, Mr. Statutory Rape. She's unthinkable."

He pointed a definitive finger at me, chuckling, "Very funny. You're hilarious."

"But that's not my primary concern, given that last August she was actually and literally _raped_, by someone who was very much _not you._" I said, and I watched the concern shoot across his face, as if there were something he could be doing to stop it.

"Who was it? Was it that bastard…" He scanned his mind, looking for a name that rang a bell.

"Danny Reed?" I said, and he nodded, increasing in certainty.

"Yeah, that's the one." He said, pushing his sleeves up on his arms.

We waited for the other to say something, and I watched the people in my peripheral passing by.

"There was a ton of shit going on with her, Ezra. A lot we don't know about her."

He huffed, frustrated. "I know there's stuff you're not telling me." He breathed into his folded hands.

"What the hell do you want me to tell you? What do you want me to say?" I pushed away from the table, and the coffees shook. "Please, Ezra. Tell me what it is you want to know."

"Calm down, Spencer." He said, fingers stretched as he set his hands down on the table, knuckles hinting at white. He lifted them up, then smacked them down again.

"Don't fucking tell me to calm down." I breathed the words out, and the hung in the air between us. "Fuck you," My body was rigid and stiff, and I held my eyes shut to keep them from glaring at his.

"Tell me how it got started. Let's start with that."

I was ready to yell at him, but I restrained myself with a low, guttural whisper, "I. don't. know."

He exhaled heavily again. "What _do_ you know?"

"I know that she tried to kill herself three times- no, four. I know that she had been smoking shit since 2011, and that it was Tracy who she had Elisabeth with. I took her to the hospital last summer after she tried to kill herself in my bathroom, even though there was no way she would have died if I had just stopped her and kept her in my house. I just wanted them to take care of it. I was worried." I blurt it all out quickly, each time I think I've said enough I throw in a little extra, just so he knows I'm on his side. "Tracy is almost twenty nine. And he has an entire index of druggies that revolve around him."

"Wait, the little shit at the funeral?"

I couldn't help cracking up. "Yeah, that one."

"What was that he was talking to you about? Stella?" He said, lips narrowing to a gash.

"Stella Sinclair." I affirmed. "She was a friend of Aria and Tracy's. She died in a car wreck with Aria."

"She was the one who died? And Aria was driving?" He pressed.

"Yeah." I told him, silent as I awaited further questioning.

"And how did she get out of serving time? That's reckless homicide charges-" He prepared to launch into a tirade, but I interrupted him.

"The Little Shit," I laughed to myself because I could see that becoming his official nickname. I liked it. "Drove out and just… rearranged the crime scene. Made it look like Stella was driving. Aria was drunk, tired, and high, but she was lucid enough to consciously decide to ram into the wall. She was trying to kill herself."

"Damn." He cursed, "Well, don't you ever wonder what she was doing up in Vermont that entire time? And wasn't she in rehab for a while?" He inquired.

"Every day." I told him, breathing the word as though it were a confession. I wasn't even thinking about the fact that we should have been acting busy, I just delved deeper into the conversation, "But it isn't like Tracy will tell us anything."

"Okay." He sighed, downing the last of his now lukewarm coffee in a few continuous gulps.

"Well, what should I know?"

"Aria loved you. She really, really did." He said, then he gathered up his things and left. I sat there alone, not at all done with the discussion. I imagined he was still there with me to reply as I pelted him with trivial information, and I told the story like it was. I forgot that he used to be my teacher, and I gave him the full narrative. I didn't know how long it had been, but when I finally broke out of my own mind, the sun had been obscured by a thick blanket of gray clouds and my coffee had no warmth left to offer. I dumped it, and walked back out to my car.

She really, really did love me.


	34. Chapter 5: Derailed

When I got home, I went out to the barn. His prodding had prompted my curiosity, and I couldn't help it. I dug her phone out from beneath the bed sheets, clicking a couple of buttons to try and wake it up, but the battery was out. I scanned the walls for a charger, and crawled across the floor to plug it in. The entire room smelled just like her, and I had hardly even realized it when she was alive and here to fill the place up with her presence in full. I waited five minutes before the screen even lit up, and a couple more before the thing let me in.

No password. I pulled up the contacts list and clicked through it, discarding all of the familiar names. Sorted by last name, the first one I came up with was Bassingthwaighte, Ree. The name didn't ring any bells, and I figured anyone who was that deep into the obscure outskirts of her secret life was good for at least a little bit of information.

I hit dial. She picked up on the third ring. "Hey, Aria, what's going on?"

Oh, shit. I really wasn't in the mood to explain. "This is Spencer, I'm Aria's friend."

"Oh," She said, "Hi."

"I'm sorry if this is a bit informal, but I wanted to ask you what you knew about Aria."

She sighed, deliberating, "We went to rehab together in July."

"Where do you live?" I demanded.

"Philly." She said, losing her confidence and certainty with every syllable.

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but Aria passed away this February."

"Oh, my god." She said, voice shaking, "What happened?"

"She killed herself. But really, I wanted to ask you." I exhaled, not sure how to approach this exactly, "I just figured that there were people who knew things about her that I didn't. And that's what I wanted to ask you about."

"Oh…" She breathed, "Okay. What can I do for you?" She said surely now, ready to do whatever it was I needed of her.

"Can I meet you somewhere?" I questioned, terrified she'd decline.

"Yeah. You can come to my apartment, if that works." She gave me her address, sympathy, and a time to meet her. When I hung up, I felt less helpless. Like maybe I really was doing something to figure this out instead of just sitting around and brooding about it.

I got the hell out of there, but I took the phone with me. The air outside was fresh and clean, and I gulped it greedily, washing my lungs of the little bits of her sitting stagnant in the air. Short of washing them out with soap and water, it was the best I could do. I stared down the very scene where we had danced in the rain, and my knees went weak and shaky, like jell- o. I ran up to my room and turned my music up so loud that when I screamed and cried, I couldn't even hear myself.

The next day was Monday, and I resurrected myself from the deep sleep I had slid into, and all the thoughts I had been suppressing flooded back into my head with alarming vigor. I shook my head, hoping they'd lose their death grip, but I had no such luck. I hadn't showered last night, and I didn't feel like doing so now, because I'd have to straighten my hair again. Yep, I'd just wear it up.

I yanked it into ponytail, trying to ignore the mild greasiness. I hoped no one would touch it today. It doesn't look bad. My eyes looked entirely too tired for me to ignore them,* so I dedicated a few minutes to my favorite tube of concealer, until the bags beneath my eyes no longer looked like bruises.

Okay, so that was an exaggeration. But I looked pretty bad, even by the time I had a real shirt and pair of pants on, and I looked like I was at least _trying_ to look normal. It was close enough. I popped some toast in the toaster and ate it dry, because I didn't want to get butter on my hands. It took stamina, I almost threw it out a few separate times. But I didn't want to sit in class hungry all day, so I choked it down.

I snagged my keys and shrugged into my jacket, and I was only a few steps away from the door when I saw his car- sitting in front of my curb, engine humming. His hands were on the wheel, as though he were ready to make a getaway, and when I opened the door, he dropped and relaxed. "I'm giving you a ride." He said.

I slid my keys into my purse. I told myself that resistance was futile, though I was probably just too tired. And he wasn't the worst company in the world. Talking to people was good for me. And he didn't feel obliged to gush condolences. He had the heater chugging along, hardly able to keep up with the cold outside. As cold as it was, I dreaded the summer. It always felt so foreign to me. "Okay."

He started to drive off and I decided to tell him about the girl I had called last night, "I found her in Aria's phone. I'm going to meet her on Saturday. She lives in Philly."

"Okay," He said, turning on the radio.

"Will you come with me?" I asked, before I could even feel the words coming and ready myself to stop them.

He nodded, "If you want me to. We're in this together." He looked as though those words had just slipped out of his mouth too, like he was gambling with god to just let him take them back. No such luck.

I reached out to put my hand on his, and he tried not to jump back with surprise. "Okay, good."

"You get out of the car first, then I'll count to fifty and I'll get out of the car, okay?"

"Sounds like a plan." I confirmed, and when we neared the school, I turned the visor to block my face off from parallel traffic, pulling my hood over my head to obscure my eyes. "Is this what you and Aria had to do?" I ask him, pressing though I know it might make him uncomfortable.

"Mostly, yes. Not towards the end. Towards the end it was difficult to get her to care." He sighed, pulling into a parking spot close to lots of other cars. No one would be paying attention to us.

"Do you want to meet up later? I need to make some more calls on her phone, I think." I told him as I unbuckled the seat belt, ready to hop out. I pulled the cell out of my pocket and showed it to him, and he gave an affirmative nod.

"Okay." He said, reaching across me to open up the glove compartment and pulling out a spare set of keys. He slid one off- it was printed with the American flag. "Here's my house key. I don't keep a spare under the mat any more. Too risky. Keep ahold of that, or I'll have to get my locks changed again," I couldn't believe he was trusting me with it. I folded my hands around it, holding it tight. "I'm leaving the car unlocked. You can sit in here while you wait for me. I have a meeting after school, but it should only last for a half hour or so."

I agreed, and a part of me felt like maybe this was weird, but I didn't even have to make the argument that it wasn't. It didn't bother me at all. It was nice to have someone else on my side. I cracked the door and slid my legs out, turning my torso back to face him. "I'll see you later." He smiled at me, and pulled his lower lip back beneath his teeth. "Thank you, Ezra."

He didn't ask what for, though I could see it on his face as I glanced back. I slammed the door shut, and he started his count. I fished my phone out of my pocket, where it sat with Aria's, and checked the time. I had ten minutes to get to class. First hour I had social studies with Hanna. Though we were on good terms, I didn't want to sit in an empty room with her while I waited for everyone else to filter in.

I dug through my pants for money. I came up with a crumpled up dollar bill that I'd snagged off the top of the drier that morning, and used the edge of the vending machine to straighten it out. It took a few tries- try to shove it in, get rejected, flatten it out a little more, and then try again. But it took it, and I debated between a pack of M&M's and a snicker bar. I

I chose the M&M's and turned back to my class. I hadn't killed much time, so I settled to just go and sit in my desk. The classroom smelled like white out and paper hot out of the printer. I dropped my bag by my seat and tore open the bag of candies, using my free hand to herd them into a small circle on the desktop.

"Good morning." Hanna said. I picked up a blue one and popped it into my mouth as I nodded to her. "How are you doing?"

"Tired, mostly." I responded, lining up all the blue candies at the top of the desk. "And you?"

"Same." She reached across the aisle and snagged a candy. I wasn't really hungry, since I had forced down the toast despite my body's protest, but I continued to eat. I hadn't really been hungry in a while. Eating was a formality.

I lined up the green ones next. "How has Em been?" I inquired, picking at my naked nails.

"She's- she's hanging in there. Really, we all are. Even Caleb. He was asking about you."

"What did you tell him?" The overcast sky leaking in through the windows made the whole scene feel heavy. Yellow ones next. Starting to look like a reverse rainbow.

"That you were doing well." She stated, raking her fingers through her hair.

"And you? Really, how are you doing?" I asked, eating up all the brown ones because they didn't fit with the rainbow.

"Shitty, honestly. But I'm hanging in there. Just like the rest of them." She told me. I gave her a nod and stuffed my face with all of the red ones.

The teacher sauntered in and slammed his briefcase down on his desk, chuckling to himself as the students in the front rows jumped. I opened my binder and held my pen in my hand, ready to jot down the notes he fired at us.

Right after the bell rang, he started scrawling on the chalkboard, and a few girls decided that whispering to one another was worth the risk of being caught. He turned around, and they leaned back into their seats, acting busy.

Right when he opened his mouth to speak, my phone went off. Or, a phone in my general proximity went off. I didn't recognize the ringtone, but it was definitely coming from my pocket, so I fished it out and held it up in front of my face as though I'd never seen it before. As though I'd never seen a phone before. I chastised myself for looking so dumb, and I turned the thing off, my face flushing with apology.

It was Ree. Didn't she know I was in school? Damn. The teacher walked over, each foot step resonating through the floor, up the legs of my chair, and into my body. Only tact kept me from shaking with it.

He held out his hand expectantly, and I handed it to him, staring defiantly into his eyes because the only alternative was to decline eye contact entirely and there was no way I was going to show weakness in front of him. He was a bully, and everyone knew it. I could still feel my cheeks burning red, and I was sure he saw it, too.

"Thank you, Ms. Hastings." It didn't occur to me until he was halfway back to his desk that I should have given him my phone instead- I needed all the contacts on hers, and I would be using them before the day ended. I wanted to call Ree back at lunch, figure out what was so interesting that she had to call me in the middle of class for it. And the only person I could see myself contacting on my own phone was Ezra, and I knew his number would be in her phone. Even if she had deleted it after the breakup, he was just a couple of hallways over.

It angered me, partly at him but mostly at myself. As I took the notes, I tried to keep my eye from twitching. Hanna didn't try to shoot me any sympathetic glances, which I was thankful for.

The class period finally dragged to an overdue end, and I made my way to his desk and held out my hand, just as he had done for me. "Phone."

"I'm afraid I can't return it to you until the end of the day, seeing as you have proven you can't responsibly keep it on your person." He said. My jaw clenched. It wasn't about the phone- it was about the fact that it was _her_ phone.

"I'll see you then." I pursed my lips down to a slit, shoving my hands down into my pockets to hold tight on the things he hadn't taken from me.

When the end of the day finally came, I was so ready just to take the thing. I rounded the corner to the room, only to find that the lights were out. No no no no no. I shook the door knob, but it was locked. Shit. He wasn't in there.

I knew my plan of attack. I pulled two bobby pins out of my hair and got to work. Not all of my knowledge was useless, because it only took me a couple of seconds, and I was in. I tiptoed to his desk, as though there were ghosts inside I was afraid to disturb. The phone was right on top of a stack of papers, and I stared at it, confused, for a few minutes before I just slid it into my pocket and made a run for it.

I almost expected someone to catch me, but the halls were deserted and no one saw a thing. The security cameras might have, but nobody checked those, anyway. I turned the thing back on, and there it was- one missed call from Ree. I redialed it, and she picked up on the first ring.

"Spencer?"

"Yeah, it's me."

"I'm on my way to Rosewood. Can I have your address?"

"Umm…when will you be here?"

"About twenty minutes. I'm glad you called when you did because I was going to have to stop at a motel." She laughed at herself.

"Well, my school day just ended, so I'm sorry I missed your call."

"Oh, shit." She cursed herself. "I didn't think of that. I thought you were at least twenty. How old are you anyway?" She inquired offhandedly.

"Old enough to break even with Aria," I paused to come up for air, "And not lose my shit when I found her dead in my bathroom."

"Seventeen?"

"The address is 320 Main, apartment 3D." I gave her Ezra's address, because I figured that was where I was going to be anyway, and that way Ezra and I could be in the same place to hear what she has to say. "And I won't be there for about forty minutes or so."


	35. Chapter 6: Derailed

I did as he had said. Slung my bag over my shoulder and headed out to the parking lot, where the sky hung low in the air, like we were all just floating through clouds. I was almost afraid that someone would recognize his car and wonder why I was climbing into it, so I did so quickly. Sure enough, it was unlocked. I dropped my things in the back seat and dug a book out of my backpack to skim while I waited, and since it was assigned reading anyway, I could soothe myself with the feeling of productivity.

It was cold, and I pulled the coat tighter around me, the fur trim on the hood scratched my face. I put my feet up on the dashboard, and my neck went at a strange angle with my chest. The book was vastly uninteresting, and I continuously skimmed over passages and needed to go back and read them again and again.

It only took him another ten minutes to show up, the engine roaring to life before I could even see him. Even though I knew he could remote control his engine, at first it still scared me bad enough that I sat up straight.

He opened up the back door first, dropping his briefcase with my things and then he climbed up to the front, turning the heat up full blast.

"I have news." I told him, and he turned and gave me his full attention. "Ree called me today. And she's on her way to your apartment."

"Wait- how soon?"

I glanced at the clock, "Actually, she should be there now."

He sighed, "Okay, let's go." And he pulled out of the parking spot.

His car drove really smoothly. That is, up until the point where he hit a rock, or road kill, or a pothole or something, and the back tire on my side spun out. Totally flat. It wobbled and made this awful thumping noise as he took the nearest exit to get off the highway, pulling to the side of a narrow gravel road.

"Oh, fuck." I said for him, and he nodded.

"Go ahead and call a cab. You don't need to sit here this whole time." He told me, climbed out of the car, reaching down to pop the trunk as he did. "I'll fix it."

I glanced at the weather widget on my phone. 35 degrees. I sighed again, cursing my fucking luck, and dialed the cab company.

"Yeah, I got a flat. My friend's fixing it. I'm off exit 23, I-78. Okay. Thank you." And I hung up. I kicked my feet back up, sliding uncomfortably far down into the seat. I reached for my book, but caught myself, huffing. I reached over to flick on the hazard lights and kicked the door open and climbed out into the bitter cold, my facial muscles retreating into a frown.

"I'm helping you." I stated, crossing my arms over my chest, cold already nipping at my exposed skin.

"If you must." He was already working at the wheel with a wrench, and reached into the trunk to hand me a jack. "Left side, towards the back wheel." He said, and it's safe to say my level of certainty on how to work the damn thing was in the negative numbers. I prayed that the cab would show up soon as I nestled the thing below the car. I decided not to voice my concern, and started cranking the thing up. It looked like it might be a little off balance, so I asked, "Wouldn't we need two? To keep it stable?"

"Only if you're climbing underneath it. It'll be fine." He assured me, and I rolled my eyes. It didn't look safe to me, but it wasn't my car. I muttered under my breath, "Whatever you say." I kept cranking the thing, waiting for the entire damn car to topple over. It didn't. I stood back up and watched him slide the flat off.

A flash of yellow in my peripheral jerked my attention away, and I tapped him on the shoulder. "My ride's here." I told him, returning to my side of the car and lifting my bag. I rubbed my arms for heat, and said, "Good luck." My breath billowed around my face, and he looked up at me, his teeth chattering.

"You still have the key, right?"

I reached into my pocket, fished around, and pulled it out, dangling it from my fingers. He gave a nod.

"Okay, I'll see you there." He reached into his back pocket and retrieved his wallet. "Here. Cabs are expensive."

When he pulled out a twenty, crossed my arms over my chest, "I can afford a cab, Ezra." I pulled my card out of my backpack and waved it at him.

He huffed. "Okay, fine." And he shoved the money back into the wallet back into his pocket.

I raised my eyebrows at him and climbed into the cab as it pulled up beside me. "320 Main, please." The cabbie nodded and turned up the heat, eyeing me as I shivered. He didn't ask me any questions, though, didn't say a word.

The ride seemed to last longer than it actually did, and I did actually get some reading done. A few pages was better than no pages, and I when I paid and thanked the man and returned to the cold once more I felt as though the last hour of my life wasn't a total bust. Besides, I'd learned how to work a jack. Sort of. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it again, so I just called it beginner's luck.

When I got to the third level of the apartment, I saw a blond- haired woman leaning against the window at the end of the hallway. "What would happen if that glass broke?"

"I'd die." She stood up and reached out to shake my hand. "Ree Moriarity."

"I thought it was… um, Bassingthwaighte?" I stumbled over the words.

She shakes her head. "Moriarity." But she didn't expand. I nodded and retrieved the key from my pocket, "I have the key."

"Wait, so this isn't your house?"

"Nope." Adhering to the precedent she had said, I offed no explanation.

"Okay." Her wavy blond hair fell over her tan face, and she looked far too… um, beachy to be from wintertime Pennsylvania. I spent the next couple of seconds trying to discern whether it was fake, but it didn't appear so. Her eyes were the same color as mine- the color of chocolate topaz. She was dressed in a long- sleeved cream t shirt and a chunky brown short sleeved sweater. Her jeans fit loosely, like they might fall off if she had to run away from something, and the ankles were jammed haphazardly into her leather boots.

I opened the door, bracing myself for what I might have walked in on. It wasn't bad, not at all. I tallied off all the laws I was breaking as I walked in. She followed me in and sat down on his couch, feet staying planted flat on the floor.

"Is it okay if I call my friend and invite her up? If it's going to be a while."

"Umm," I picked a soda can off the kitchen counter and shook it to see how much liquid was in it. Almost empty. I dumped the rest into the sink, and it cascaded over the few dishes that were piled up. "I don't care."

She dialed the number and held her phone to her face. "Come up. No, don't. I'm getting dinner later. I'm hungry too. Okay. I'll see you." She hung up.

"Do you want something to eat?" I inquired, unsure.

"Don't worry about it. I don't want to take your food."

"It's not my food. And it doesn't matter." I reached into the pantry and tossed her a half empty bag of Doritos sealed shut with a rubber band. "Bon appetit."

"Thanks." The conversation was replaced with the sound of crinkling plastic and crunching corn chips. As projected, the knock on the door was right on schedule.

"Come in." I called. The girl who entered looked nothing like I imagined her. Straight, long red hair gathered into a messy bun, and a floral Henley tee and the same saggy jeans Ree was wearing. She looked young- younger than me.

"Out of curiosity- how old are you two?"

"Fourteen," Said nameless.

"Twenty-three." Said Ree. "And you?" she reiterated.

"Seventeen."

"How old was Aria?"

"Nineteen."

I didn't mean to patronize her, but I couldn't help wondering what nameless was doing here. "Is she your sister?" I asked Ree.

"No, but she lives with me."

"Are you related at all?"

"Negative again."

Nameless jumped in, "Not that it's any of your business."

"Nice roommate you've got." I clicked my tongue as I pointed at her. "Sit down. Have some chips."

"You're not even an adult, who the hell are you to condescend to me?"

I pulled a second bag of chips out of the pantry and tossed it at her, "Eat up."

"I'm not hungry."

"Suit yourself." I chuckled as she dropped it on the ground, perching against the wall. "I have to ask- why are you guys here, anyway?"

"We're in the middle of a move." Ree explained, and popped another chip in her mouth.

"Okay." Right then, I heard the locks turn and Ezra entered the scene. Right in that moment I thought about how great it would be if she were here right now- how the circle would be complete.

Nameless moved out of the way as the door pushed closer to her. He dropped his things by the door, nodding at me. When his hands were free, he reached out and offered his.

"Ezra."

"Marianna." She shook his hand firmly, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. Ree pushed herself off of the couch and resealed the chip bag before walking over and offering her own hand. "Ree. I ate your food."

He chuckled at her and took her hand in his. "It's okay."*

"Okay, let's get down to business." She flopped back down onto the couch but this time her feet landed on the coffee table and her arms left her chest. "What do you guys want to know about Aria?"

"Well, I have to ask. Why did you decide to drive out? Spencer was going to come and meet you, what was so urgent?" Ezra asks, more curious than accusatory.

"Well, I told Spencer: I'm in the middle of a move. Couldn't meet at my house." She gave an offhanded click of her teeth and smiled with the left side of her face. The two of them: Ree and Nameless- Marianna- are quite the pair. I don't think I could stand to live with another person that's so similar to myself. Marianna is definitely moodier- I can tell that already. But Ree carries the same air of stubbornness and independence, and I wonder how they can even stand each other.

"Well, what do you remember about Aria?"

"She was something. Like I told you, we were in rehab together," She held her hand up in the air, "Don't get me wrong. She and I were not in the same boat. Let's just say my friends are two things- druggies and assholes. And you can never trust a drug addict."

I laughed because it was true. "What was she like around you?"

"She thought the program was BS, and she was very vocal about it. She and I snuck out after hours a lot, just to go get frosties or drive my truck into the cornfields. So much corn out there. I was waiting for little bloody faced children to come peeping out, I swear. Anyway, Aria talked about you a lot," She pointed at me as we all watched her, elbows on our knees and chins in our hands. She was eating up the attention. "Spencer Hastings. It's nice to finally meet you." I tried to decipher whether this was a good thing or not, before I finally decided just to take it as a compliment. "No one would say the word suicide around her, so I gathered that drugs weren't her only downfall. Really, I didn't belong there. And I think that's why she liked me so much. She hated all those other guys. She wasn't nice to them at all. She was one of the most real people I'd ever talked to, but that was only when we were alone."

"Wait, what did you know about her beforehand? I mean, who she was before she got there?"

She sighed, "Really, I didn't know anything. I knew her really well in those six months, but not before, not after."

I could understand that. There was so much I didn't know about her, but I had enough of an imagination to fill in the blanks, and sometimes I was sure that knowing the truth would have just been better. I couldn't get those images out of my head. And even now, every time I see a gray Toyota Camry, there's a part of me that's so sure it's her behind the wheel and if I tail them long enough, she'll come back.

"We had a lot of fun. She was one of my favorite people I had ever met." Marianna contributed with the crunching of Doritos. I almost wanted to shoot her a look, but I didn't think it was worth it, so I just rolled my eyes. It wasn't like I was unfamiliar with the fourteen- year- old population, I mean, I was in _high school_. Speaking of which, "Don't you have school?" I asked her. She raised a single eyebrow.

"I'm homeschooled."

So much about those two didn't add up, but they didn't look like they cared very much.

"Okay, Ree." I reclaim her attention, "When was this, exactly?"

"April to October, I think. She was pretty pregnant, too, in case I didn't mention that. She told me it was a girl, but that's literally all she would say. She was eighteen, I think. Right?"

"Right." I pulled my lips into my mouth, then released them. "Hey, I have to ask," I took a breath in, but held on to it, "Did she seem happy?"

"She didn't seem like she was going to kill herself." She offered, as though this were close enough. "She was pissy and bitter, but I don't think she was unhappy. I knew there was some shit that had happened to her that she wasn't telling me about, but I wanted to tell you."

This wasn't really helping me, but I decided not to voice my concerns.

"Okay, but you know I have to ask," I paused, surveying her eyes. She made o indication that she was anticipating my response, and I almost felt as though I should repeat myself just to get some sort of affirmation from her. She had none to offer, so I just continued. "What was she on when she got shipped in?"

"Crystal meth and alcohol. They actually made a point of saying she was the only one they'd seen in a while who had no trace of weed in her system. They said she didn't take the gateway route, she just went straight to the hard stuff. No one ever does that."

I almost forgot that Ezra and Marianna were still involved in this scene, and had to continuously remind myself to acknowledge them. Or, at least, acknowledge Ezra. I nodded at him, but he wasn't looking at me. "And what's so weird about that? I mean, what does it say about people when they do that?"

"Well, I'm no psychologist, but usually it means that it was supposed to be a onetime thing. And that they didn't know what they were getting into. The girl had problems, obviously."

"Train wreck." Marianna confirmed. I broke out of staring at Ree to give her this glare, somewhere between confusion and accusation. She rolled her eyes and kicked her leg up onto her knee.

"Don't look at her like that. She's right." Ree corrected, tucking loose blond hair behind her ear. She was really very pretty, but she looked like she was trying to cover it up. Like she didn't want to be pretty, but really, it made her prettier. She just looked real.

I huffed at her, my eye twitching. "Okay, fine. Continue."

"It means she was in over her head. And I don't mean that in terms of the drugs, I mean way before that. It was beyond her." Ree sighs, "I'm sorry, Spencer. I know you loved her. And you too, apparently, Ezra."

I felt like I had to change the subject. Not like I should, but like Christ himself would descend upon us in all his glory punch us out if I didn't say something different. My facial muscles scrunched. "Okay. Is there anything else, anything at all that we should know about Aria?"

"She wanted to get an abortion in May. She was what, like three months along? Yeah, well, she started flipping out on me and asked me to sneak her out, so I did, and she came back not twenty minutes later with tears and drool and snot all piled up on her face and she just cried into my arms for an hour. I couldn't get her to shut up, I thought we were going to get caught. But they don't really concern themselves with our breakdowns. I didn't even know if she had gotten it, I just kept telling her it would be alright. She didn't tell me until three weeks later when she had to go in for her ultrasound that she'd backed out."

"So she was lying to you?"

"I guess. She never told me the whole truth,"

"She learned from the best," I muttered under my breath, memories of Alison flooding in, so fast I didn't have time to barricade them. I shivered, fists closing in my lap.

"What?"

"Nothing."

They didn't question this. Maybe they knew better, or maybe they just didn't care.

"That's all I knew. That she was pregnant, and she was a hard ass. She was a hard ass while pregnant."

Frankly, I spat out the words, "Yeah, Elisabeth had SIDS." I didn't even think I was angry at Aria for that. But really, it was hard to let go of a grudge in the place of someone who could not forgive. Maybe, sometimes, when I looked at Liz, I saw all the vulnerable little parts of me, bare, naked and exposed to what Aria had become. Even though she wasn't my daughter, I saw more of me in her than I did of Aria. And for a few weeks, she almost _was _my daughter.

And I'll never claim to know what happens to us when we die. But whatever happened to her, I hoped she was okay. Safe.

"Wow." Ree exhaled, her forehead wrinkling. I was actually gonna… you know, ask, about her daughter. I had no idea."

"Aria blamed herself. That's why she's dead. I mean, she could have handled it, but she didn't. _That_ is why she's dead."

Ree exhaled her sympathy into the silence of the room. "I'm really sorry, guys."

Marianna dared not interrupt. Not this time. All the little ghosts following us around like black balls of ink, chained to our ankles like cuffs, they kept us from fleeing. I dared not look at any of them. Not even Ezra. I ran my fingers across my knuckles and pushed down, watching blood flow back into capillaries. Clean, fresh blood. Never tainted. It's amazing how two people who grow up nearly as sisters can take many of the same experiences and turn them into something different. It's been said before and it will be said again: two people can look at the exact same thing and see something entirely different. For example, you take a needle and show it to a five year old and they think of shots- the doctor's office, sugar free lollipops and cartoon character band aids. Take a 27- year- old from the slums and they start wondering when the last time they shot up was and why they aren't on the come down yet. And I know I have no control. Not over my relationships, not over my school, not over my family. Nothing.

So I spoke some of the truest words I can ever remember, "What's done is done."


	36. Chapter 7: Derailed

They left shortly after. He and I sat there as the silence started to become awkward. We were like separate countries split by a river, but now the river was all dried up. And the border was still there. I was still waiting for the slam of some tsunami to come and sweep us away. I chewed on my tongue as I imagined the sea, shimmering with the reflection of the sky, illuminated a brilliant and grandiose blue, only revealing the ruddy brown when the waves and the sun could shine all the way through. It looked like glitter spray paint on dirt.

"They were something," I commented, scraping at my nails.

He just nodded. "That was kind of a bust,"

"Not totally, I mean, she did try to get an abortion. And we know she was a bitch to everyone there, too."

"Yeah, I can see how she was trying to make up for something when she actually came back, like she'd made some deficit and she had to pour herself out to fill it," He scratched his skin and pursed his lips. "And she dropped straight into the hard stuff, as she said. Said that no one ever starts with the hard stuff…" He trailed off.

"My parents are lawyers. I've seen worse." I dissented, crossing my legs. I didn't really want to talk about it. I wanted to go home and turn on a bad movie, drink some honey tea, and slip into my pajamas. I ought to have just left; it wasn't like he was going to try to stop me.

"I don't doubt that. Still, though, have you ever been this close to something this… awful? I mean, this is fucked up." He ran his hand through his curly brown hair and sighed again. Like he was waiting for a catalyst of some sort to just blow us up so we could stop bottling everything up.

"Yeah, proximity is a bitch. Just stay as far away from everyone as you can, and you'll be golden."

"That seems improbable."

"Loneliness or heartbreak, pick your poison." I tapped my heel on the hardwood, "It's like a choose your own adventure book, except there's no right answer. You don't get to choose if you fuck up, just how."

"How old are you again? Eighteen, nineteen?"

"Seventeen."

He closed his lips into an O and blew out a thick breath, eyebrows ascending on his face, "It's just surprising. Crazy."

"I'm crazier than you'd know."

"I could tell you the same thing." He looked at me with alarming intensity, but I held his gaze through the curtain of my eyelashes, daring him to break the stare. He didn't.

"What are we even trying to accomplish here?" He finally dropped his guard and let his hand suspended in the air fall to hit the arm of the chair. He didn't even care anymore, pretending like I had some important reason to be so desperate to find out exactly what it was that led her to her demise.

"I really, really love her." I breathed.

He sighed again, "I know, and I do, too. But finding out isn't going to change anything. And you shouldn't be so eager to dig up a secret. It could change everything."

"I just want the truth. I want to know."

"Okay," He settled, meeting my eye, "We'll find out. We will, you have my word. It just makes me tired,"

It wasn't like I wasn't tired, too. I still felt it sitting in my bones, clinging to my ankles, tripping me and holding me down when I tried to get up. I was just highly functional at rock bottom. And that's not something I pride myself on. Adaptability is different, that's something to cherish. I don't think so much that I have a natural capacity for accommodation, but I knew how to keep moving. And even when everything looks the same, watch the way the light hits it. Some tragedies are not just that. "I'm tired, too."

"Well, we'll figure it out. I can't promise you much, but I'll promise you that."

"Thank you." I said, feeling like I should say something to give the two of us a sense of camaraderie, say something to let him know that I'd be doing everything I could as well, but the words caught in my throat.

"Aren't your parents wondering where you are?"

"Probably," I answered, because it was true and I felt too close to lie to him. "They probably are."

I thought about going home and sitting in my room all alone, where the darkness would swallow me like a pill and I didn't want to leave, not now, not ever. I was in nervous anticipation of my own company, because there was still a part of me convinced that it was undeniably and inexcusably my fault, no argument. My hands latched onto the tight fabric of the chair. "I should go."

"This is usually when Aria would stay. She'd call her parents and tell them she was at your house, and that would be that. Before, of course. Never after."

What was this line we were drawing in the sand? What _was _before, anyway, what was after? I wanted to know, to know something for sure. He seemed to know. "After what?"

He gestured to the air, "You know." He imitated Ree's voice as he said, "_The hard stuff,"_ He was more pained than satirical, like he'd had a duty to her that he had breached. He fought the tremors out of his voice, white knuckled pressed to his sides as he spat the words out like a wad of flavorless gum.

"As long as we're on the same page." I offered, since I didn't want to contribute to the negativity that was already enveloping me, I said the most positive true thing that I could.

When he looked at me after that, I felt as though I'd known him all of my life. The way his eyes looked gray like the sea when the sky is the same shade of overcast gray, I could see straight through them, see myself drowning. And I even knew how to swim.

"I'm not going to stay here," I said, since it was safer, and I couldn't even tell my preference. I broke away from the connection I had felt, snapped it like a rubber band pulled to tight. No backlash.

He tried to laugh, but wound up just blowing more air out of his nose than usual. "Okay, good. The couch isn't very comfortable."

"I bet you snore."

That made him laugh, this time for real. "Okay. Good night, Spencer."

"Goodnight," I gathered up my things, tossing a couple pieces of trash stranded on the counters into the trash bin as I did. "Coffee, same time tomorrow." I used it as a statement rather than a question despite my doubts, but I saw the back of his head move as he nodded.

"And call some more of her friends." He offered.

"I will." And with that I left the scene, holding the strap of my purse to my shoulder just a little too tightly, and my knuckles faded to the same shade of white that had become a sort of warning to me, a warning to calm down before I did damage. But I never could take my own advice.

It was only the third floor, so I took the stairs down to ground level, and the way that the yellow lights hung from the walls made me feel like I was in a castle, stone walls with a blueprint that's drawn all the way up to the sky. I think about going up to the very top of the building to the sixth floor and just run past all the west facing windows as the cold glass catches the sun and shoots it into my eyes.

But I don't. Bracing myself for the cold, I zipped up my coat and ducked my head so the wind wouldn't hit my face, and I kicked open the door, the wind pushing back. The cold bit, and I felt the goose bumps lifting on my skin already as I trudged to my car. Snow was falling again, and it melted into the sludge already on the pavement as the streetlights the same shade of yellow washed out all the stars in the sky.

I almost missed it the first time, the lights in the cab of the truck. I didn't know what it meant but I was curious, so I peeked in as I passed and saw Marianna's carrot red hair as it shimmered even in the battery light filling the cab. It really was beautiful. Ree pulled two blankets from the backseat and handed one to Marianna- nine years younger than her, what did they want with each other? It wasn't like she was a precocious child, and trust me, it takes one to know one.

I don't realize I've stopped still until Ree catches my eye and quickly breaks the contact, turning off the light. They were sleeping in there. Well, trying to sleep. It was thirty degrees out, and I knew they'd have to turn the engine on every hour or so to heat it back up, they were better off just giving up and driving back where they came from, sleeping when they got back.

I thought about knocking on the window and inviting them to stay in the barn, but in my mind that was wrong on so many levels, and besides, I didn't need Marianna's snark.

And Rosewood was such a small town, it wasn't like anyone was going to bother them, anyway. Aria's weird friends weren't my problem anyway. None of it mattered, so I climbed into my car and relished the warmth for a few minutes, and then I just pulled out and went home. I didn't really feel like thinking about anything, so I just turned up the radio and chained my mind down so it wouldn't wander. At least not too far.

And I kept thinking about the way she was ended, the ceaseless loop that played in my mind, and sometimes I'd even yell at her in the midst of the night to see if I could stop her from jumping the gun, but she never did. Even when her eye caught mine again, she'd fall again, and it would loop once again.

My wrist burned where she had scars. My whole body burnt, because I knew worth everything that she had scars everywhere. My stomach felt sick, and I thought I was going to throw up just like I did at the funeral, but Ezra was not here to keep me from ripping myself to shreds in isolation.

All I knew was that I would never break the skin, never take a hit, never shoot up. I'd drown in my own peril before I fell down the same road that had claimed her, took her away from me.

I wouldn't even let myself gnaw on my own cheek, like I had grown up doing. I just held a death grip on the steering wheel and drove with all my muscles rigid and cold, and I tried to imagine that wherever she was, whatever she was doing, she was happy.

And as much as I try, I can't shake these thoughts. And even when I'm driving past all of these lights and I get onto the freeway, they fly past at 70 miles per hour and blur together at the edges of my vision. Each one washes the car, and I don't even know where I'm going or whether the freeway will take me there, but I'm making my demons run to keep up and it feels like trying. This surreal feeling fills me, and I no longer have to be happy, because this melancholy is making me feel alive, and even though I know that no one makes it out of this world alive, it's soothing. It feels like opening your eyes that you shut just in time to miss the head- on collision and realizing that you are very much alive. I felt that same rush, and I didn't even care to check myself for damage.

I hadn't driven very far, but I peeled off onto one of the side roads, paved with gravel. My car bounced uneasily, and I drove all the way to a patch of naked trees looming over the dry earth. They looked like dancers. I killed the engine, and after a minute, the headlights, too. Then I sat there in total silence, the rush of before dissipating. Hanging onto it only tainted the memory, like I might as well just let it fade out gracefully. And so I did. I pulled a blanket from the backseat, because I had one, too, and I climbed out of the car.

I thought about spreading it out and lying down on it, but it was too cold and I was too alone. I wasn't here to pretend she was here with me, I was here to be alone. And so I held it tight over my shoulders, my hands growing stiff with the cold. My neck got sore from the angle it sat at staring up at the sky.

And then I got to thinking about space as a whole, how I was just looming over the cosmos, suspended in thin air, secured only by gravity. The thought made me feel dizzy, and I claimed a fistful of the dead grass on the ground so I wouldn't fall, even though it was irrational.

The stars didn't care. That was the beauty of it- I was nothing. I opened my mouth as wide as it would go and screamed, "I'm important!" But no one heard. It was swallowed, discarded, forgotten. I was not important, not in the grand scheme of things, not at all. Even Einstein never caught the eye of the supernovas.

My arms were tired of holding me up, so I let them give out as I fell back onto the cold, hard ground, no different from the ground she was in. I ran my fingers through the grass and blinked because my eyes burnt, and tears I didn't know were there spilt out onto the grass, and soon I was racked with choking sobs, so angry and violent that they actually kind of scared me. I thought about my phone in the car, how easy it would be to go call Ezra to come and get me.

But my body and I were not on the same page, so I just lay there. If anyone found me, I would have gotten sent back to Radley, no questions asked. Having a track record makes those sorts of things hard.

And the stars didn't care. The trees didn't care, the earth didn't care. Maybe they didn't like me because I'd gotten my tears on them. But that didn't matter, because in the end, I got to go home and stare into the mirror and watch my eyes flicker beneath the blinding lights, thinking about nothing but myself, because I _am_ important. I got to go home and gamble with my demons, try to figure out how to live with myself for the rest of my life. The trees only had to deal with me for a little while, whereas I was stuck with me for the rest of my life. And that was why I felt so unapologetic when I slammed my fists on the ground, crying out again.

This time, since it wasn't like the sky or the grass or anything was watching me, I didn't feel like I had to scrape myself together to prove that I wasn't weak. But maybe I was weak, and maybe I'd spent my whole life too afraid to admit it. And for once, breaking down didn't feel like losing my mind. So I let the tears dry right on my face as I placated myself, repeating the words, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay, like a mantra inside my head until the words became completely devoid of meaning. And I did think about calling him, but then he wouldn't know what to do and neither would I and it would ruin the peace I was forging with myself.

So I didn't call for anyone. I was old enough to know better.

I listened for any sound of wildlife, but there were no crickets, no fireflies, no frogs. It was not summer yet. All I heard was a dog barking to be let in, and I had to wonder what time it was.

Sometimes, when you meet up with a group of friends, you're so taken by the charm of actual human closeness that you're actually kind of scared for when it ends, because you just know they're all going somewhere else after and you're not invited, so you're all alone in a room full of friends, and it makes you feel so unbelievably lonely that it actually kind of pisses you off and you want to leave early.

But this wasn't one of those things. There was a better place to go, a real after party, but none of us were invited. Ezra had to sit alone in his apartment, Ree had to sit in that cold truck cab all night with her bratty friend, and here I was, alone in a field with my eyes drooling tears still.

Maybe she was the after party, the thing we all had to go home to.

That made me feel less alone, like maybe the others were really right here with me and I didn't have to imagine them anymore because they were right by my side. And maybe if I looked them right in the eye as the emotion crashed over me, rose to a crescendo in an empty ballroom, they'd feel it, too. It seemed impossible to keep something that big to myself.

Maybe I shouldn't have left. I couldn't even decide whether or not I really wished I hadn't, because there was so much going on in my head that I didn't know what I really believed. So I just followed the laws of inertia and stayed put. There was no right answer, anyway.

And there was nothing to go home to, not really. And since it was a Friday I guess that there'd be someone to talk to in the morning, but Aria was not here to keep the night away.

My mind turned into a movie and I was watching the scenes, replaying and replaying until I wasn't even remembering the actual events, just the last time I had remembered them. Until I was hardly even holding onto them anymore.

**Aria in my bed**, her bare shoulders peeping out from over the blanket. The way she promised me, how even now that I knew it was false, I still held it close because she didn't know she was lying. She made a promise she couldn't keep.

**My fingers** leeching warmth from a cup of complimentary coffee in a hotel lobby.

"My friend will be here soon, she's eighteen and can rent the room,"

And so they let me stay.

**The cramps **in my brain spreading to my hand as I tried furiously to wash the ghosts of her touch off of my skin, I scrubbed until my skin turned red, bright red, the angry color of skin around a fresh cut, my skin was as pissed off as I was.

**"Trust me, you look great." **She told me, her hands running down my body as she admired me in the full mirror. I held the bulky zircon necklace to my collarbones, watching it catch the light, "Really great."

"I don't feel great."

"Here, I'll show you. Put out your hand."

**"Fuck you, Aria." **The look in her eyes, how she didn't even fight back. She just sat there and stared right through me, her lip quivering. Like she deserved it.

**She breathed in** as I breathed out, eyes soft as she smiled at me with unparalleled warmth, "To love another person is to see the face of god," and I just nodded because I knew the quote, and knowing that she knew the quote made me feel closer to her, even though we had already close all of the gaps between our limbs.

**"Do you think **they ever get tired of just standing here all the time?"

"Surely, but at least they get paid to stand around all night with a bunch of people they don't know."

"I think that makes it worse."

"Does it?"

"Yeah."

**I ran my fingers** across the scars as she slept. I acquainted myself with them, because, hey, if you can't beat them, join them. And that was what I did.

**I held her daughter** to my chest, her feet dangling. I grabbed a blanket off of the couch and wrapped it around her as best I could single handedly and avoided the creaky spots on the floor as I left headed towards the door. I hugged the wall, because the floor only whines in the center where people step the most, and I didn't wake either of them. She was still sound asleep in the bed, oblivious. I push the door open and exit the security and warmth of the barn. My bare feet acted as a ball and chain, I knew I wasn't going too far. I just stood there in the still of the night, the creamy moonlight casting over our faces like a veil. I kissed her bald little head and held her closer to me, as close as I could without hurting her, and she stirred. I decided it was time to go back in.

**"You killed her!" **I screamed to a room full of ghosts who weren't listening.

**"No, don't leave," **

"I'm not." I sighed, holding my eyes back from a roll. "I'm not leaving."

**"Do you want to fuck?"**

"Sure."

**I ran my fingers** over the cracking spines of the books, "How long have you had these? How old are they?"

"Oh, those aren't mine."

I gazed at the furry coating of dust on the pad of my finger, remembering that dust was 90% dead human skin cells. I wiped it off on my pants.

And then my mind told me that it was too cold to be reliving suppressed memories in the middle of an empty field with no one to share warmth with. I felt tighter, more composed as I returned to my car, still holding the blanket around my body as I climbed in. The lights broke the darkness that I had adjusted to, and I felt myself go temporarily blind.

It reminded me that darkness wasn't a real and tangible thing. Darkness was a void, and voids are the easiest to conquer because they don't fight back very hard. Light is real, darkness is the opposite of real. And I didn't need to like standing beneath the bright lights because they looked like interrogation lamps, and I felt like I had to try twice as hard to hide all the emotions floating over my face like shadows. I thought about what it must be like to be blind, to only know the darkness. And I let myself relax, because maybe exposure wasn't so bad. I didn't have so much to hide, anyway.

Hoping for her was hopeless, because maybe she _was _the darkness. And that made me feel like I had to adjust to the blinding white light of the sun again, no matter how harsh.

So I resurrected the engine and pulled back onto the freeway. And the funny thing was, when you blurred your eyes just right, all the city light looked like just like a congregation of ghosts. So when I got home, I kicked off my shoes and went straight to sleep on the couch.


	37. Chapter 8: Derailed

There was no question about what to do when I woke up. I climbed out of bed and before I even went to the bathroom, I grabbed last night's coat off the coffee table and dug out her phone. I returned to the contacts list and began clicking through, looking for any and all unrecognized names. I saw Ree's again, but I ignored it and kept going. Next was Macy Collins. Two resources in the first two letters of the alphabet. It looked like I had a long way to go, but I had to start somewhere, so I hit dial and waited for a response.

I wasn't expecting to have to compose a voicemail, so I stuttered over my words like it was my first time speaking English. "Hello, this is Spencer Hastings," I finally just spat out the information I was trying to tactfully lay out and hung up, sighing at myself.

I stood up and decided to call Hanna. I was emotionally exhausted, and maybe she'd want to go shopping or see a movie so I could maybe get my head to shut up for just a few hours. And maybe she'd bring Emily with her. But then, Aria's absence would be even more pronounced, and the two of them would no doubt be closer and happier and I would turn into a third wheel for my own best friends. So I just called Hanna as I foraged through the kitchen for something to eat.

"Please tell me you don't have any news to share." She demanded.

"What if it's good news?"

"No news is good news." She said, "Took me a while to get that."

"I have no news. I was just hoping you were free today." I picked an apple from the fruit bowl and tossed it up in the air, catching it and letting it roll back into the bowl with the others.

"You're in luck. I haven't had real plans in months. What are we doing?"

"We're going to see Gravity."

"I'll meet you there in twenty."

"Okay."

And with that I hung up, realizing only then that I had called her on Aria's phone. Was that why she's asked about news? What did she think it meant?

I had no idea, so I picked up the apple and took a bite, propping myself up against the cold granite counter. I returned to the couch and redressed myself in the clothes I had slid out of last night. I thought about going upstairs and putting on new clothes, but they still smelled clean and I was going somewhere different today than yesterday.

I was just about to snag my keys and leave when I heard a buzzing from the kitchen that nearly scared me out of my wits- the house was dead quiet. It was just Aria's phone, and I hurried back over to take the call. I thought it was going to be Hanna and I prayed she wasn't going to have to cancel, but it was Macy.

"Hello?"

"Who is this?"

"I'm Spencer, I'm Aria's friend,"

I gave her the quick speech on the last few months, tuning myself out as I spoke. It was so easy just to go into autopilot and ignore the sound of my own voice so I wouldn't have to think about it, but when she started asking questions, it was harder.

"No, she didn't overdose."

"What happened? How did it happen?"

"She slit her wrists," And then I was crying into the receiver with a stranger on the other end because I was remembering it, and _god, _I had never seen that much blood in my life. The thought gripped me and shook me and my throat closed up and I had to put my hand over the mouthpiece so she wouldn't hear me sobbing. The crashing, thunderous wave of it hit me like the massive blister of the sea, and salt water flooded my nose.

It was the first time I had really let myself think about it, and it might have been the last. "I'm sorry," I told her.

I repeated it, "She killed herself."

"Is that all?"

"No, I wanted to ask you what you knew about her. Because I remember you. You were at the hospital with her. Do you want to meet up somewhere?"

"Look, there's obviously stuff you don't know about her. Maybe it's that way for a reason. Just let it be, Spencer." I could hear her pull the phone away from her face.

"Wait!"

"What?"

"Just tell me why you were at the hospital with her. I know you don't have a photographic memory like you told me, I know you lied to me. Just tell me what you wanted with her."

She took a deep breath so I'd know just how much she was going out of her way to help me, so I'd know what a hassle this was for her. "I'm Tracy's sister. And Aria wanted me to be her Sponsor in AA because I was already neck deep into the program and she had to pick someone. So I told her, why the hell not?"

"Wait, she was in AA before the hospital visit?"

"Yeah, for a year," She said candidly, as if this wouldn't come to a total shock to me.

Why would she keep that from me? I moved the phone from my cheek so she wouldn't hear the air whistling out of my mouth as my lungs closed in. "Where were her parents?"

"They came to almost every meeting, Spencer. They were there with her." She sighed into the phone and I felt my lower lip shaking indignantly. "She obviously didn't want you there, she didn't want you to know, so I don't know why I'm telling all of this to you. It's not my place."

"Keep fucking talking, I swear. I know the cops better than you think."

"You wouldn't, you little bitch."

"Fucking try me."

"What do you want to know?" She heaved a sigh and the fight drained out of her voice. I felt something warped, something that dipped into the territory of victory, like I had beaten her. But I hardly knew anything yet.

"I just want to know why."

"No one told me why, either," She said, though she still sounded distant and uncooperative it was easy to pick the emotions out of her voice and lay them out in front of me.

"I'm starting to think that everyone knew but me."

"Do I have to spell it out for you?" She spat, and I stood up off the couch as though she were here to see me.

"Apparently, yes, you do. Spell it out."

"Okay, forget Aria, for just a minute, and I'm going to give you a scenario. Okay?" I figured it was a rhetorical question so I held silent and sat back down in anticipation of her answer to all the burning questions. "Okay, you're sixteen. And you're not Aria. Forget her. You're sixteen and you're in a relationship with this abusive asshole and you're old enough to know better, but not old enough to do anything about it because you like the way that secrets feel. You like feeling like you know more about the world than everyone else. So it doesn't matter what he does. Because it's a learning experience. And maybe that is fucked up, but you don't really mind the pain that much. And then one day he hits you just right and you fall to the ground and it hits you like the ground beneath your ass that maybe, just maybe, you deserve it. And he sees that, of course, that he's ruined you. You're ruined. And so you find an older guy, one who knows his way around the dark side of this world. And he knows the rule book, because he wrote it.

"And since all of this is so far off of normal for you, so far past your limits that you don't see that there's only so far you can go. Everyone else has been at this for years and they know just what they can get away with. But you, you've just been getting lucky. You have no idea how far you can go because it's all so brand new and you've broken out of who you used to be, so you don't feel like setting new limits. The sky's the limit, but the sky's fragile. Once you hit the sky, it breaks. The sky falls, and so do you. The sky really is the limit. But once you hit rock bottom, it's so far away again and you realize that there are rules. And so you learn them.

"And I tell you, that girl knew the rules. It was a game, and she played it well. It got to the point where she decided she wanted out, but it was like she was trapped. She was in a glass box, but she couldn't bang her fists or kick her way out because then people would see that she really was trapped. And she wouldn't want you to think that."

I switched the phone to the other side of my face. "So Danny did it to her, or she did it to herself?"

"You can't break the sky by yourself. The sky belongs to everyone." She said prophetically, and it unnerved me. "She started using because Danny drove her so far into herself that she only saw one way out."

"Well, where did I come in? Why did she bring me into it?"

"Look, I'm telling you all this as an outsider looking in. I can tell you what I think, but I don't want you to quote me on it, because it's not fact. This is how I see it, and I'm a psych student, so I know my way around the human brain. But don't take this too seriously."

"Deal." I said, standing up again to pace around the house because sitting still was requiring more energy than it should have.

"She talked about you a lot. It was actually kind of unnerving. I can go out on a limb and say that since the world was shitting on her, it shit on you, too, just due to proximity." I nodded to myself, but kept quiet. "And there was this way to her when she said it, like she almost thought you could hear her. Like you were there. It was the strangest fucking thing. So I got to thinking about that, you know, since I was her sponsor. I thought that maybe I should know a little bit more about her. I finally just decided that you were there as a sort of a conscience. It didn't really make sense to me, since she lied to you so much." All of her words came slowly and carefully, as though she were terrified to word something wrong and get me thinking the wrong thing. "But really, everyone lies to themselves. And that was how she saw you, I can say with some certainty. You were her conscience, and in a way, you were home. That's why she always came back to you. She needed you. She was so close to you that she didn't feel like she had to act okay. And that was unfortunate for you, since you're the one dealing with all the repercussions. There are downsides to being someone's closest confidant, even if it doesn't seem that way when you're fighting the battle to win their favor."

"Okay. Okay, thank you." She was starting to tell me things I already knew, and my stomach felt like it was growing so tight it might explode. I felt sick again. "Thank you."

"Did I provide enough information, or will you be calling the police on my brother and me?"

"I'm not calling the cops. Thank you for talking to me."

"Not a problem." She said, and she sighed again, expectantly, and I took that as my cue to hang up the phone. I dropped it into my lap, but picked it up again.

"Hanna, I have to cancel today. Yeah, I'm so sorry. My parents are taking me to a dinner party tonight, and my mom thinks it'll be good for me to go and pick out a new outfit. Does tomorrow work, instead?" She agreed, sounding completely free of suspicion, so I hung up and headed out to my car. I grabbed the notepad I'd been scribbling notes onto, because I had a history of forgetting what people tell me when I'm excited about the knowledge. I didn't try to read it, just pushed it into pocket and started up the engine. I knew I had to tell Ezra as soon as possible. In this quest for answers, what was mine was his as well, and I hoped against reason that maybe he'd have some news for me, too.

The ride had become so routine that I didn't even need to think about the turns I was making, where I was going. I could drive there in my sleep, and I wasn't sure that was such a good thing. I parked and dumped a handful of change into the meter, buzzing in to his room.

"Hello?" I heard surprise in his voice.

"It's Spencer, I come bearing news." The buzzer sounded and I trudged up through the medieval- feeling staircase, where it was dark and lit only by low energy yellow lamps, even though it was the middle of the day. When I knocked on his door, he was there waiting, in a pair of jeans and a t shirt that looked as though they had just been yanked on. It smelled like freshly fried bacon and waffles hot off the iron.

"I made breakfast." He said sheepishly, gesturing inside.

"Is there enough for two?"

"Yeah, let me start another waffle for you." He gestured at the barstools by the counter, "Have a seat."

I had a seat, my purse on top of my lap as I played with my fingers.

"You know I have to ask, what is the news?" He asked me as he poured batter.

"I called Tracy's sister. She was Aria's sponsor in AA, and apparently Aria was in there for a year before I took her to the hospital. I had no idea. And she told me that Aria fucked herself up so badly that she didn't even know how far was too far."

"Do we know how she got started?"

"Macy said that it was a group effort. Danny, Tracy, Aria herself. Said it made her feel like she was experienced, informed. Like she was bigger than us."

He didn't even try to summarize that out loud for a minute, he just sat there and let it sink in. "She was just tired of who she was. She was closing in on herself." He finally said.

"I think it's time you told me. How did you two break up?"


End file.
